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Comment by TrackerFF | Hacker News Reader

A bit OT - but...I find it a bit interesting, even fascinating, how people in the field of software seem to absolutely obsess over greatness in individual engineers.

You see this is in many shapes and forms - whether it's a discussion what makes one a true "10x" engineer, what lifestyle habits will result in excellent engineers, what personality traits to look after when searching for world-class software engineers. etc.

Having been in many other (technical) fields outside software engineering, I've never seen the same mentality or obsession there.

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I think it might be related to the leverage Software Engineers have compared to people in other fields.

It's possible for a single Software Engineer to stand up an entire system by themselves. Most other fields don't have anywhere near that amount of leverage.

It’s a form of narcissism. The same way humans marvel at how Earth could possibly have the perfect conditions for life to exist. Shit must be have been meant to be right?

In our own small little worlds, we build software that sort of fits the business, and collect a check. Woah, how’d that happen? I wonder if we’re like, amazing or something?

I think it's because measurement, metrics and estimates are so hard in software engineering.

How long should it take to do X? If X is building a shelf, servicing a power plant or designing a car headlight I would imagine at least within the field the order of magnitude is pretty clear. Sure, better tools and experience may make someone twice or thrice as fast or the new guy is taking double the normal time, but such spans fit neatly into the human brain.

But now observe how neither of these statements seem off:

Getting my new web-based CRM tool written and published took me the whole afternoon.

Getting the new web-based CRM tool written and published took us 24 months.

Now add to that the fact that nobody really understands software top-to-bottom (or at all) and it is no surprise that everyone is confused all the time, builds weird mental models of things and skills while vaguely striving to achieve the first scenario and not the second.

I think passion is everything. Everyone is 10x at their passion. Strive to have passion in all that you do.

Yes. This "greatness" is actually quite a fragile thing when one considers the mysterious origin of passion, etc. Without motivation there's nothing.

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