It's hard to judge by what describe if you are the "smart engineer" or the others are the "smart engineers". "In a past role, I got into a debate about code st

It's hard to judge by what describe if you are the "smart engineer" or the others are the "smart engineers". "In a past role, I got into a debate about code style with the smartest person I've ever worked with. It boiled down to me advocating for more whitespace..." - This example puts both you and the engineer and the company in a bad spot as it's a complete waste of time to discuss something like this (if it's discussions over discussions). The tech lead should should decide once and then everyone should comply with whatever way they decided (potentially after one short discussion). If smart engineers consistently propose un-necessary complexity then Im sorry to bring it, they are not smart engineers and you have nothing to do but run. It wont help to discuss it and try to convey your message (unless you are the CEO but even that wont help as you can't monitor everyone so honestly if you are not the CEO just run and if you are the CEO just replace the team). So really hard to tell without being in the place who's the smart engineer but if you are the smart engineer then run :) if they are the smart engineers then stay and learn.