I've written about over-complexity quite a bit, in hindsight. I guess it's somewhat of a passion for me.
Increasingly, it seems there is a potential organizational role that is dedicated to optimizing for complexity. Yes, a great CTO will fill this role in the beginning, but they can't be everywhere all the time as an organization grows.
That's why I'm going all in on becoming a design-gineer.
Can a design-gineer tackle a large swath of challenges better than a pair of designer & engineer?
Check out a talk I gave at Hired that breaks down how I think about such a hypothetical role.
Over time, designers are freed up from certain kinds of minutae, and design-gineers are empowered to own more. Not every UX challenge will fit this type of role, but I have a hunch that enough do to warrant the investment.
Stay tuned as I attempt to do exactly this at Aha!