Comment by makeitdouble

> And all of this adds complexity, more things to go wrong.

This argument is one of the reason why a backend engineer could just add the created_at and updated_at fields without asking a product owner.

It doesn't make much sense from the pure product perspective, so the standard answer will be "no, let's add them when we have a real case they're needed". The product I'm inheriting right now misses these fields on half of the tables. Except when you really want the data, it won't be there as you're not going back in time.

Trying to convince someone that it's worth it will also give the impression they're optional, when you already decided you need them. So at the end of the day, it's your responsibility as an engineer to do what's required, without punting it to non technical stakeholders to push your back.

I also wouldn't ask a product manager if they think table schema should be orthogonal.

Now keeping or not IPs or user IDs in a table is a whole different story and requires a lot more consulting, and not just with the PO.