BigTech makes a specialist stronger in the past

A large technology company can give an engineer scale, complexity, responsibility, and deep expertise. But a successful product has another side: it strives for stability.

The more users, money, integrations, and people tied to a system, the higher the price of a technological experiment. A new technology must justify migration, team training, infrastructure changes, and long-term support costs.

Therefore, a specialist grows stronger year after year within the existing stack. Their professional strength increases, but if the stack itself loses relevance relative to the market, this strength is increasingly directed toward the past.

COBOL shows an extreme case: one can be an outstanding specialist in a technology that has long ceased to be a technological frontier.

MODX gives a closer example. During the platform's growth period, deep specialization meant moving along with the market. Later on, one could continue becoming more and more efficient in MODX, even though the main technological movement was already happening elsewhere.

Productivity and professional development are not the same thing.

For a futurist, it is especially dangerous to get stuck for a long time in an environment where the main task is to make the most efficient use of a proven past.