I hate how true this is, even as a job seeker. I'm here building things using Next.js when I'm fully aware that I can build them using less than that, yet I must keep going and overcomplicate things in order to add my familiarity with specific technologies with my personal projects on my resume.

And then, there's people who do "resume-driven development" and push for more complexity in their workplace so that they can list real-life work experience for the next door to open. I know someone who made a tool that just installs Java JDK + IDE + DBearer using Rust, so that he can claim that he used Rust in the previous company he worked for.

I generally think we're more obsessed with being perceived as engineers than actually do engineering.