I'm with you that the world in general is filled with bullshit jobs, but I do not subscribe to the perspective of wholesale bullshit jobs in the cited "big tech," since in general I do not think that jobs which have meaningful ways to measure them easily fall into bullshit. Maybe middle managers?
Do you reckon the KPI's and performance indicators used in big tech count as meaningful ways to measure performance? Wouldn't someone implementing a complex resume-driven project score highly on these measurements, despite a simpler solution being correct? I am not sure that job-hopping every 18 months to maximise TC (ie optimise against your incentives) is a great way to learn about long-term design and organisational implications.
I'm not saying that these jobs are bullshit in the same way that a VP of box-ticking is, just that it's not a conspiracy that a cathedral based on 'design-doc culture' might produce incentives that result in people who focus on maximising their performance on these fiscally rewarding dot points, rather than actualising their innate belief in performant and maintainable systems.
I work at a start-up so if my code doesn't run we don't get paid. This motivates me to write it well.
