As a counter-point, i've seen engineer-led Scrum and other agile varients work very well. Low stress, high productivity, high predictability.

YMMV, and sadly the norm tends to be bad practice, but it isn't all like that. Companies with good engineering culture do engineering well.

Companies with a poor culture do most things poorly.

I'm so confused by this thread.

It's like I've wandered into a conversation where people are saying,

"You know, my boss tried to give me cake the other day." "Cake? Everywhere seems to be doing it nowadays. What I would give to find a place to work where the boss doesn't make you eat cake all day." "Yeah, cake cake cake, all the time."

And I'm like,

"Er... cake? The yummy thing that's really nice? Your boss gave you cake? And you didn't like it?"

And everybody replies:

"No, you idiot, cake! Smelly, hard, poisonous cake, with glass shards in it as usual."

I'm standing here, with my slice of yummy cake, thinking... are you the crazy ones, or am I?

"You know, cake's meant to be like this: soft, sweet, really tasty?"

"Yeah, that's what consultants want you to think, but cake is actually made of burnt tires and crushed up bottles."

"Your boss gives you burnt tires and crushed bottles and tells you that's cake?"

"Yes, that's what cake IS."

And I can point to all the recipe books for cakes, and show you the cake I'm eating right now, and you'll all still tell me:

"Well every cake I've ever been given smelled of burning rubber and made my mouth bleed, so I don't want to work anywhere that advertises that they give employees cake any more." "You sound just like the last guy who gave me cake."

I mean, I get why that kind of experience might make you cynical, but I don't understand this desire to wallow in the belief that anyone who tells you it doesn't have to be like that must be lying or selling something.

"And chocolate's awful too."

Really? The same asshole who has gaslit you about what cake is has lied to you about chocolate too?

I'm so sorry for you. Please. Let someone help.

Have some cake.

It could also mean that they fall under the other extreme of perpetually outdated over-documentation. IMO the only thing worse than no docs are wrong docs.

You're hired!