> It sounds cynical in retrospect;

At the FAANG I was at, we were pushed to interview interview interview, and the company tripled in size in two years.

We constantly questioned the motive for more engineers, when we had plenty already, constantly seeking alignment. The rationale was more engineers meant we could make more products more quickly.

It never worked, and caused huge headaches that never really went away. It didn't help that team size was made a specific goal of a number of VPs. So it because a goal to grow team size, rather than a business need

And because the VPs were doing it, a whole bunch of people down the hill started copying then, using team size as a forcing function for power.