--- title: Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity | daily.dev description: Engineering teams systematically reward over-engineering while penalizing simplicity, creating perverse incentives from interviews to promotions. Engineers who... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/nobody-gets-promoted-for-simplicity-zxfzhtqzv twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity | daily.dev og:description: Engineering teams systematically reward over-engineering while penalizing simplicity, creating perverse incentives from interviews to promotions. Engineers who... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/nobody-gets-promoted-for-simplicity-zxfzhtqzv og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/zxfzhTQZV.png og:image:alt: Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity **[Terrible Software](https://daily.dev/sources/terriblesoftware)** · 8 min read · 29 upvotes · 2 comments ## Summary Engineering teams systematically reward over-engineering while penalizing simplicity, creating perverse incentives from interviews to promotions. Engineers who build elaborate systems get compelling narratives for promotion packets, while those who ship clean, minimal solutions have nothing impressive to show. The post argues that unearned complexity is the real problem, not complexity itself, and offers concrete advice: engineers should document the decisions they didn't make and frame their judgment explicitly, while engineering leaders should change the questions asked in design reviews and promotion discussions to make simplicity the default rather than something that needs defending. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@khauma** · 1 upvotes > Great article! A very enjoyable and relaxing read. I love the design of this site. **@rsteadman** · 0 upvotes > Don't tell this guy: > > > https://app.daily.dev/posts/engineers-do-get-promoted-for-writing-simple-code-qcmzigw6w ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Engineers do get promoted for writing simple code](https://daily.dev/posts/engineers-do-get-promoted-for-writing-simple-code-qcmzigw6w) · sean goedecke · 38 upvotes · 6 comments - [You're Not Paid to Write Code](https://daily.dev/posts/you-re-not-paid-to-write-code-v90betmzy) · Tech World With Milan · 289 upvotes · 26 comments --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#company-culture](https://daily.dev/tags/company-culture) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/nobody-gets-promoted-for-simplicity-zxfzhtqzv) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/nobody-gets-promoted-for-simplicity-zxfzhtqzv","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/nobody-gets-promoted-for-simplicity-zxfzhtqzv"},"datePublished":"2026-03-03T12:25:37.644Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T12:26:02.517Z","description":"Engineering teams systematically reward over-engineering while penalizing simplicity, creating perverse incentives from interviews to promotions. 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A very enjoyable and relaxing read. I love the design of this site.","datePublished":"2026-03-03T21:14:41.085Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/zxfzhTQZV#c-WLaUDtsmG","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Kahlil Wallace","url":"https://daily.dev/khauma","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--QvppE9Ip--/f_auto/v1767378558/avatars/avatar_7eQFeSQRDx0muV3n92gxT?_a=BAMAK+ZW0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Don’t tell this guy:\nhttps://app.daily.dev/posts/engineers-do-get-promoted-for-writing-simple-code-qcmzigw6w","datePublished":"2026-03-29T10:04:48.216Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/zxfzhTQZV#c-5NBfHeDWj","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"R. Steadman","url":"https://daily.dev/rsteadman","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--O0TOmw4y--/f_auto/v1715772965/public/noProfile"}}]} ```