I think maybe the service just takes more people than he thought. You could make the argument that "it shouldn't take as many people as it did" i.e. the code q

I think maybe the service just takes more people than he thought. You could make the argument that "it shouldn't take as many people as it did" i.e. the code quality "is bad" Or you could say "this is hard and takes people to make sure it works." You will always find that "the code is brittle" as you get rid of more and more people if your assumption is that the service should run with no oversight and no people