So, in this sense, a master engineer’s “range” is actually infinite.
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Replying to @johanatan
Doesn’t work that way from what I’ve seen. People are comfortable enough to technically discuss things with people at other home levels but not actually practice more than 2 levels away. Small differences overwhelm conceptual similarities. Skill decays to dangerously amateurish.
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Replying to @vgr
Nah, you’ve either heard wrong or haven’t talked to true masters. People can also psych themselves out and underestimate their actual abilities too.
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Replying to @johanatan @vgr
The situation is actually this bad: with the mere competent becoming known as “unicorns”. I think that is the result of several forces: HR and such departments wishing to “box” folks, imposter’s syndrome and folks blindingly and unthinkingly submitting to HR boxing them in.
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Replying to @johanatan
I think you’re vastly overestimating the number and or capabilities of these supposed “true masters”. If anything I think I know far more of them than usual, which throws the average/median engineer’s limited range into sharp relief.
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Replying to @vgr @johanatan
And it’s not what I’ve “heard”. It’s what I’ve seen close-up or directly participated in across a variety of gigs.
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Replying to @vgr
Yes, the field is flooded with pop culture programmers. The Woz’s of the world still exist & are out there (being known amongst the mere mortals as “unicorns”). Is the world better off with the field having been flooded with these passionless masses? Doubtful but it is what it is
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Replying to @johanatan
There’s too much to do for the bandwidth of the top talent. This has been true since at least the 80s. Most tech that has succeeded at scale has done so by figuring out how to leverage what *average* talent can do.
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Replying to @vgr
That’s true to an extent. We could also look at the shortage as a filtering mechanism: the things they find worth doing and subsequently follow through with are truly the things humanity needs to be doing. The rest of it is bullshit.
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Replying to @johanatan
Coming from a country which pretty much invented the game of throwing large numbers of decidedly average people at programming, I’m much more sympathetic to, and optimistic about, the results. It’s not a filter. It’s a risk-managed allocation decision.
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It’s actually okay for a random low-importance enterprise software thing to be janky and unstable. It doesn’t have to be as solid as nuclear reactor code. I’m apathetic about “what humanity needs” type thinking. Let the marketplace of a zillion janky github repos decide that.
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Replying to @vgr
Yea, I’m in agreement here but the tools we use to assess and promote talent are abysmal. We are far from a true meritocracy in this respect. There is a huge component of luck involved in rising through the ranks (and the muddying with mediocre talent + politics is a drain).
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Replying to @johanatan @vgr
See: Big Head (& other aspects) from Silicon Valley (for example). It’s such a good & funny show precisely because of how on the nose it is.
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