[ranci]

They did need them at one point. And the product was successful enough that nobody in management ever had to get around to cost cutting, in the cases of Netflix, Facebook, etc. But that doesn't mean engineers are doing anything important.

[diab0lic]

I asked a similar question to a sibling comment in this tree but have you considered that there's a lot more than meets the eye at these companies? If the product seems "simple", "done" or "just works" that's a good thing and intentional.