Comment by lliamander

Most often I've seen this kind of thing done with software build pipelines where most competent engineers already have an understanding of the requirements, but this can be seen in other systems as well.

The point of these house of cards systems is that there is far more incidental complexity than there is essential complexity. The requirements are not enormously complex. The problem is that the incompetent engineer is only thinking tactically within the bounds of the system as it is currently implemented, they aren't thinking strategically about how the design could be improved to require much less work.