I feel like battling with complexity is an important part of growing as a programmer, and it doesn't require any domain knowledge. To that end:

No Silver Bullet - for two ways to think of complexity https://blog.acolyer.org/2016/09/06/no-silver-bullet-essence...

Not really a paper, but a turing award lecture The Emperor's old clothes - https://blog.acolyer.org/2016/09/07/the-emperors-old-clothes...