I find number of papers published to be a questionable metric for measuring qualification. It feels similar to judging a software engineer by number of commits. Is this really a key measurement used to determine tenure track?
I think peer-reviewed publications measure something closer to "sprint points closed" or "major releases shipped" than commits (because you can break commits nearly arbitrarily small, where a too insignificant paper will fail peer-review).
A primary purpose of an academic researcher is to contribute to the field via research, largely measured by accepted publications where they are the first (did most of the work and writing) or last (group leader/principal investigator) author.
