This is a problem that is not unique to software engineering, and predates LLMs.
Large organizations are increasingly made up of technical specialists who are very good at their little corner of the operation. In the past, you had employees present at firms for 20+ years who not only understand the systems in a holistic way, but can recall why certain design or engineering decisions were made.
There is also a demographic driver. The boomer generation with all the institutional memory have left. Gen-X was a smaller cohort, and was not able to fully absorb that knowledge transfer. What is left are a lot of organizations run by people under the age of 45 working on systems where they may not fully understand the plumbing or context.
Large organizations are increasingly made up of technical specialists who are very good at their little corner of the operation. In the past, you had employees present at firms for 20+ years who not only understand the systems in a holistic way, but can recall why certain design or engineering decisions were made.
There is also a demographic driver. The boomer generation with all the institutional memory have left. Gen-X was a smaller cohort, and was not able to fully absorb that knowledge transfer. What is left are a lot of organizations run by people under the age of 45 working on systems where they may not fully understand the plumbing or context.