Zero-interest-rate policies between 2008 and 2022 directly incentivized tech firms to expand engineering headcount for stock-price signaling rather than output, producing the just-say-no senior engineer role as a complexity-control mechanism. During this period, companies grew teams from tens to thousands of engineers on tangential projects while relying on high-bar reviewers to prevent unmanageable system changes, as documented in primary hiring and layoff data from 2022-2023. Post-rate-hike layoffs of 5-20% of staff coincided with AI narratives but aligned strictly with profitability requirements once cheap capital ended. Related Federal Reserve rate decisions and earnings transcripts from major tech firms show the shift from growth-at-all-costs to measured delivery. The original coverage understates how ZIRP hiring patterns also amplified productivity theater across non-senior roles, a dynamic visible in 2015-2021 compensation surveys and open-source contribution logs from firms that later cut staff. AI code generation pressure on just-say-no engineers is therefore a secondary effect of capital-cost changes, not an independent driver.