> Do you think this is more a reflection on the fact that the more mature company has already made these decisions for you
Not really. There are many competing tools internally too, and you have to choose the appropriate one. One thing that's common though is they all integrate with everything else - monitoring, building, launching, codebase, documentation, etc. This makes it much easier to just make it work.
But the reason that integration works is because at that lowest layer there is pretty much exactly one option for everything, ie. for logging, monitoring, building, launching, deployment and configuration, front-end / load-balancing, storage, code location, service interface, documentation, authn and authz, etc. etc. Sure there are competing tools on the boundaries, but there's so much you can count on existing everywhere.
Sure, but I'd say the benefits outweigh the lack of choice about the infrastructure.
I frequently talk to my friend about work, and I realize most of the problems they face - even at good tech companies - are something I never have to think about. I don't mean the actually difficult problems which any Software Engineer would love to tackle, but the grungy ones.
Not really. There are many competing tools internally too, and you have to choose the appropriate one. One thing that's common though is they all integrate with everything else - monitoring, building, launching, codebase, documentation, etc. This makes it much easier to just make it work.