📊 Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity

Matheus Lima in a piece that had my head nodding up and down the whole way through:

If you’re an engineer, learn that simplicity needs to be made visible. The work doesn’t speak for itself; not because it’s not good, but because most systems aren’t designed to hear it.

Start with how you talk about your own work. “Implemented feature X” doesn’t mean much. But “evaluated three approaches including an event-driven architecture and a custom abstraction layer, determined that a straightforward implementation met all current and projected requirements, and shipped in two days with zero incidents over six months”, that’s the same simple work, just described in a way that captures the judgment behind it. The decision not to build something is a decision, an important one! Document it accordingly.

I've met a lot of great engineers who do absolutely amazing work. Many of them have no idea how to articulate and celebrate what they accomplish in a way that resonates with leadership. This post should be required reading for every software developer.