[gcbw2]

This is the "expected" outcome of most big tech organizations. I doubt there was malice or stupidity from the actual people coding this (but the malice still exist, it is just a few layers up)

You have two kind of elite at the top: a bunch of very smart people, completely disconnected from daily work, setting up automated code checks and style rules. Let's call those architects/Engineering VPs. Then you also have a bunch of short term revenue people in a completely different side of the company who owns all the money and set the targets. Let's call those Product VPs

The daily work will be full of agile-cargo-cult (that is, all the meetings agile impose, without any the actual communication), with people in the teams reporting to different chains. Engineers having to abide by the crazy ineffective coding style (usually because nobody cared to provide the tools to help achieve the code quality required), and product/managers abiding by the short term revenue churn.

And since the Product org is the one who decides if target goals were met for bonuses and promotions you see why the actual coders might do that bullshit (e.g. which one ever got you a promotion: "I contributed to hugely announced feature X" vs "I followed all the best practices set up by the architects i have never met and prevented a security report two years in the future from dragging the company in the mud"?)

Most companies denounce the problems of having silos, but silos actually make the smaller org/teams responsible for the entire stack and tools. It is hated by investors because it is more expensive, but in the end, it is the real cost. A very vertical big corp will be cheaper but the reason it is cheaper is because less work is being done and always end up like this for ignoring the human nature of the people that it is made of.

[userbinator]

Engineers having to abide by the crazy ineffective coding style

This is usually a sign of "metrics-driven management". They are then surprised why all their measures of "code quality" and "compliance" on their awesome dashboards and analytics are showing 100% while the actual product continues to spew forth bugs and disappoint their customers.

Any rules perceived as stupid will naturally be worked around. "You get what you measure."

[rossdavidh]

...and that right there is Huawei, Boeing, Exxon, BP, and a thousand other big corporate dumpster fires in a nutshell.

[flattone]

Dumpster fires are everywhere not just large companies: contractors, restaurants, marriages etc.

[solotronics]

I would argue that the natural state of things is variable levels of dumpster fire.

[PeterStuer]

True, but greenshifting, cya driven development and derailment by metrics come natural with a multilayered middlemanager organization.

[BubRoss]

He didn't say anything about big companies being exclusive to disasters.

[flattone]

agree.i didnt mean to seem like i thought he/she/they said only big companies.

but isnt it sufficiently common public language to focus on large /corporate/capitalism etc? i only hoped to offer a note to support thia this conversation from falling into that.

thanks for following up on that, good catching!