There is a major problem with how programmers are judged.

Say you are given a seriously challenging and apparently problem; that is to say the naive approaches are all hideous train wrecks. You work on it long and hard, until you have a key insight that allows you to implement the simplest most elegant solution.

Now a naive observer will look at it, say well that's obvious, and then ask why you wasted a week to write 40 lines of code.