How good engineers write bad code at big companies
Every couple of years somebody notices that large tech companies sometimes produce surprisingly sloppy code. If you haven’t worked at a big company, it might be hard to understand how this happens. Big tech companies pay well enough to attract many competent engineers. They move slowly enough that it looks like they’re able to take their time and do solid work. How does bad code happen? Most code changes are made by relative beginners I think the main reason is that big companies are full of engineers working outside their area of expertise. The average big tech employee stays for only a year or two1. In fact, big tech compensation packages are typically designed to put a four-year cap on engineer tenure: after four years, the initial share grant is fully vested, causing engineers to…
