[terracottage]

One person's too-clever code is another person's attempt to prevent O(N^2) lines of unmaintainable noob code from being added.

Problem is, I've seen people with years of experience put this crap in. When you show them how much better it can be, they don't tend to take it well. It implies they're not the "senior engineers" their resumes claim.

[Cthulhu_]

They really aren't if they can't take criticism and feedback on board, or can't see how their code is objectively bad.

Senior is just a job title / pay grade, it does not mean someone is a good developer. Thankfully I've never had a label like junior/medior/senior attached to me, because while I have plenty of experience I don't think the job descriptions for senior developers applies to me. Probably impostor syndrome but still.