I think these two kinds of environments always cohabited. In the 90's/00's you had enterprise software development (think old school J2EE) which was all about p

I think these two kinds of environments always cohabited. In the 90's/00's you had enterprise software development (think old school J2EE) which was all about processes (and boilerplate code), with the smallest feature taking months to implement (and usually resulting in an over-engineered outsourced low quality mess). On the other side you had small shops environments like ID Software and startups with a completely different philosophy. My take on the issue is that we have lost the distinction, and now everything is enterprise software development. No matter your size and the scope of your project you must adopt THE enterprise way of developing. The reason is that using the same processes and tech that a FAANG/Unicorn has basically become a requirement in term of signaling, both for companies and developers. Edit: What we miss is that at that size they are (rightfully) solving processes problems. But for startups it's irrelevant (or premature optimization at best). Previously it was simpler: companies with 1000+ developers were not cool.