> engineers care about working product if they are incentivized to care about working product
Places that set up the correct incentives are usually very rare. Maybe hedge funds or some finance places which give you a decent chunk of the profits your code makes but that's about it.
Every other place pays you the same "meh" salary and the quickest way up is to job-hop frequently, in which case resume-driven-development takes priority over "working product". That's how you get cargo-cult over-engineering, everything else be damned since you will be gone by the time the consequences emerge anyway.
(also you have "startups" where over-engineering is usually a desired feature as it gives them a justification to grift more VC money to keep their unsustainable business afloat further).
Places that set up the correct incentives are usually very rare. Maybe hedge funds or some finance places which give you a decent chunk of the profits your code makes but that's about it.
Every other place pays you the same "meh" salary and the quickest way up is to job-hop frequently, in which case resume-driven-development takes priority over "working product". That's how you get cargo-cult over-engineering, everything else be damned since you will be gone by the time the consequences emerge anyway.
(also you have "startups" where over-engineering is usually a desired feature as it gives them a justification to grift more VC money to keep their unsustainable business afloat further).