People definitely fetishize complexity. I often mention that I like an intellectual challenge at interviews, and the interviewers often mention 'oh, but this project is very complex' like they are saying something naughty. (Once, the interviewer followed up with "we're using algorithms). I suspect they are usually right, and the codebase is a pile of unnecessary design patterns (because those are what educated developers use, right?).

Where I currently work we're using Azure to do a shitload of computations. At the same time, many modules don't even bother to throw away intermediate calculations. They literally have a giant array of them, and save every result, for each step, even if it's not necessary.

But hey, the project is seen as a huge success, because it's so complex.