The Perfect Machine Nobody Needs
How great teams get lost building things that don't matter
There’s a pattern you start to see in big companies, and it’s a strange one. You can have a room full of the smartest engineers, people at the top of their field, and they can spend years building something that, in the end, doesn’t really matter.
It’s not because they’re not working hard. They’re working incredibly hard. The problem is that somewhere along the line, the work itself becomes the point.
I've seen systems where the sheer scale is staggering. A project might involve pulling data from a dozen different sources, transforming it, and making it available in a combined way. To achieve this, the system becomes a complex web of interconnected components. Every change, no matter how small, takes a long time to propagate, just to make sure nothing breaks. The team's attention becomes focused on alarms, bug counts, and making sure all the pieces stay running.
They're the best mechanics in the world, keeping this incredible machine alive.
But if you ask a simple question like, "How is this combined data being used?" or "Is it solving a real problem for anyone?", the answer is often vague, or even unknown. The team is so focused on maintaining the system that they haven't had time to measure its impact.
How does this happen? How does a team of smart, dedicated people end up building something that isn't really helping anyone?
It usually starts with good intentions. The goal is to build a robust, scalable system, a truly impressive piece of engineering. But over time, something shifts. The individual goals start to diverge from the product's goals.
An engineer's priority becomes closing tickets or delivering features on time, not necessarily creating something that customers love. The metrics that matter become internal and technical. The team gets so caught up in optimizing the system that they forget to optimize for the user.
The result is a complex, expensive machine that consumes talent, time, and resources. It might be a marvel of engineering, but it's not really solving a problem.
The real trap is losing sight of the "why." We get so focused on the "how"—the code, the architecture, the performance—that we forget to constantly ask:
- Why are we doing this?
- What problem are we solving?
- How will we know if we're successful?
The most valuable skill an engineer can have isn't just technical expertise; it's the ability to step back and ask those questions. It's the ability to challenge assumptions and to make sure that the team is always focused on delivering value to the end user.
Because a simple tool that people actually use is always better than a complex machine that solves a problem nobody has. It's about remembering the point of the thing.