> When an engineer like this proposes something that adds unnecessary complexity, it's usually hard to argue with. The proposed change typically does indeed mak

> When an engineer like this proposes something that adds unnecessary complexity, it's usually hard to argue with. The proposed change typically does indeed make the system objectively better, and they're the one taking responsibility for doing the work and ensuring its correctness. But the overall system becomes a little more brittle, and a little harder to reason about, two things that are much more difficult to measure than memory and power. I don't think you (and they) can be sure that the changes make the system objectively better. You may have a hard time measuring the downsides, but they're still here. And that may be the root of the problem. You can argue with an engineer about rate of bugs, power consumption, average time to deliver a feature. But it's hard to argue about "the system being more brittle". One way out would be to try to have metrics on the downsides of the changes that they propose. Another would be to try to make them understand that even if something is very difficult to measure, it's their job as engineer to take it into account. I will say this without any malice: the way you describe them, they don't appear to me as "too smart" but simply as focusing on the part of the job where the results are easily measurable.