> A solution that simultaneously solves the problem and reduces complexity is almost the definition of genius.

Well put. Chasing "How simple can we make this?" is a large part of what makes this job enjoyable to me. But it's perhaps not a good career advice.

Yeah, "resume driven development" is a second major force pushing complexity that I didn't mention. People want to be able to get experience with as many buzzwords and technologies and stacks as they can for obvious personal self interest reasons.

The incentive is real. A great programmer who does a great job simplifying and building elegant maintainable systems might not get hired because they can't say they have X years experience with a laundry list of things. After all, part of their excellence was in making those things unnecessary.

It's a great example of a perverse incentive that's incredibly hard to eliminate. The net effect across the industry is to cost everyone money and time and frustration, not to mention the opportunity cost of what might have been had the cognitive cycles spent wrangling complexity been spent on polish, UI/UX, or innovation.

There's also a business and VC level version of this. Every bit of complexity represents a potential niche for a product, service, or startup. You might call this "product portfolio driven development" which is just the big brother of "resume driven development."