> are we lacking time/money/tribal knowledge to understand how it deeply works?
This is a serious issue when a system becomes complex enough.
For instance you work there for 4 years, became the most versed into the system, and have a hunch that the manual process to validate all submissions to some system could be wildly simplified.
But then random managers come to ask “are you 100% sure there won’t be hidden issues ?”, and by definition the answer is “no”. And since you’re the only one on the proposition, you have to bear the risk alone if you push it through. You could, but it is hardly worth it (diminishing rewards at your level, heavy bashing in case of troubles).
And there’s ton of other subtle and not so subtle situations where you have some knowledge, you could do something, but you don’t have any backing to make it worth it because others just don’t know. So stuff keeps piling in.
TBF not all companies work like that, but you also don’t end up a lone expert in places where these kind of issues are solved early and organically.
I definitely agree and I have seen this. I can understand being risk averse to change and unknowns but debt and cognitive load should be a consideration too.
This is why teams creating a billion microservices because it is the pattern of the day gets me a little angry. It is just another unused thing to watch out for.
> are we lacking time/money/tribal knowledge to understand how it deeply works?
This is a serious issue when a system becomes complex enough.
For instance you work there for 4 years, became the most versed into the system, and have a hunch that the manual process to validate all submissions to some system could be wildly simplified.
But then random managers come to ask “are you 100% sure there won’t be hidden issues ?”, and by definition the answer is “no”. And since you’re the only one on the proposition, you have to bear the risk alone if you push it through. You could, but it is hardly worth it (diminishing rewards at your level, heavy bashing in case of troubles).
And there’s ton of other subtle and not so subtle situations where you have some knowledge, you could do something, but you don’t have any backing to make it worth it because others just don’t know. So stuff keeps piling in.
TBF not all companies work like that, but you also don’t end up a lone expert in places where these kind of issues are solved early and organically.