some of the art of software engineering is in ... predicting how requirements are likely to change in the future, and building in extensibility only where

some of the art of software engineering is in ... predicting how requirements are likely to change in the future, and building in extensibility only where needed I agree. I've definitely fallen into the trap of overengineering an extensible, multi-use solution for something that gets used once. I've also been blessed to be encouraged by my boss to go all-in on reusability on a different feature, which turned out to have really paid dividends now that pretty much every subsequent feature request has been able to be handled without hassle. It's definitely a skill I expect to continue to improve at over my career. :)