Yup, in a word, ownership.
But that's an unpopular approach these days where many companies are obsessed with minimising the bus factor to the point that their IP is as replaceable as their employees.
Re:Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity
by tripledry on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @02:22AM
(#47244263)
Also, budgets. I have been vocal about being on-call, no problem for me as long as there is extra compensation (in our org there is).
No takers yet.
Companies hate ownership because it means they need to hire competent people who are more expensive
These days its turned less into bus factor and more into got-fed-up-of-wage-compression-and-left factor
That only works in world regions where being a developer isn't seen culturally as yet another office job, and there is actually a job market that allows jumping easily across companies.
This has been my personal mission and motivation to go into management. I see my job as making sure engineers are rewarded for building the simplest thing that works.
So far the best way to align incentives that I've found is a simple policy: We'll ship whatever you want, but we know your phone number and you're on-call for your systems. At least 2nd tier on call.
It's a little mean but you'd be surprised how quickly engineers start simplifying stuff when they feel like they can't get anything done because someone's always asking questions or triggering alarms about that weird thing they built 3 months ago.
> A lot of system design interviews are accidentally training people that the goal is to draw more boxes until the interviewer nods. The more senior move is usually: start simple, instrument, set thresholds, and only then add machinery
I do the system design interview. The easiest way to fail is to over-design the solution. I am going to ask deep probing questions and you better have answers. My favorite answer is when people go "Oh yeah you're right, this box doesn't add any value, we can remove".