[etruong42]

My experience working on Google Cloud Platform is similar. Even when the solution is relatively technically simple, there are many organizational impediments and politics because the solution likely involves multiple fiefdoms.

The only thing that seems to get the fiefdoms to work on an issue is if a big enough customer calls enough of an attention to the issue so that no leader/fiefdom wants to be blamed in such a "high profile" issue that everyone got their work in gear for. This leads to organizational dysfunction since now everyone understands that there's no point in trying to fix anything until there is enough attention on it, and that is mainly achieved when a big customer complains.

I've even had projects that took months of engineering work that would resolve many user complaints about a lack of really basic functionality, and different elements of leadership would block the launch. I can only guess that some fiefdom did not like change and would not state their objection publicly, so I only got stonewalled, and I never got an explanation to throw away months of work. I am as certain as I can be that if a big customer complained loudly enough about the problem that such basic functionality was missing, the organization would demand that the fix be launched.