If you have either high performance real time needs, and it’s impactful to do so, or tight deliverables where performance is some component, the code is often written for a computer over a human.

The more specialized or niche certain project areas are, the less likely anyone will ever be reading it directly as a programmer (and those that need to, are often able to disentangle the obscurity). The compromise is a clean interface to otherwise isolated or pure functions.

Often times, this is unfortunately poorly executed or inappropriately assumed. Usually the people who should write clever code are the ones who have experience writing clever code, but almost certainly anyone starting to write clever code is writing terrible code.

Inexperienced folks often write clever code to solve a business need at that time. They create tremendous tech and culture debt. It’s easy to not understand when you’re an IC or line manager, though, that the business could have been severely affected otherwise. I’ll take millions in tech debt opportunity cost and the future morale hit over a failed startup/vertical any day.

Just my 2c in high performance or hardware constrained projects both as an IC, and as various levels of management who’s both inherited mountains of “clever” shit and and built my own directly or indirectly.