If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that most engineers aren't that productive. It's easy to fill your day with non-important ditch-digging to look busy, an

If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that most engineers aren't that productive. It's easy to fill your day with non-important ditch-digging to look busy, and it takes a certain level of critical thinking to cut through the bullshit and get stuff done. So companies have to continue hiring until they find that magical person who manages to do the work of 10 people. Some companies get lucky and find 5 of these people right off the bat, others, not so much. It could also be the engineering culture. All it takes is a couple of lazy developers and the laziness culture beings to propagate to the rest of the company. One or two people being wishy-washy about delivery dates and meeting times will send the message to the rest of the team that it's ok for you to also be wishy-washy with these things. Management doesn't always think there's a culture problem, so they just increase headcount thinking that productivity directly correlates to headcount. It's not fair to fully blame engineering for this. If the company doesn't have a strong engineering voice, you will get handed ridiculous requirements and specifications and yes, you'll need 50 more developers so you can meet the needs of the picky lead designer who wants pixel perfect function on every device ever created for every language for any feature. All that being said, when a company is doing well, the executives and shareholders shout "Hire baby, hire" and so the machine brings on capacity with no real goal, other than expansion for its own sake.