NOBODY GETS PROMOTED FOR SIMPLICITY

Summary from the TLDR Design newsletter

Complexity often sells better than simplicity, despite simplicity being a virtue that requires hard work to achieve. In many engineering environments, employees who over-engineer solutions get promoted because their complex work creates compelling narratives. This incentive problem starts in interviews where complex system designs impress more than straightforward solutions, and continues through design reviews where engineers feel pressured to add unnecessary abstractions and future-proofing.