Do you think there's any good decision making and hard work involved too, or just pure dumb luck?
Yes, luck. Hard work is table stakes. It is necessary but wholely insufficient. We shouldn't make the mistake of over-attributing our successes to hard work and ignore the massive social and economic advantages that let us capitalize on the work we do. Everyone else works hard too, they just don't get to reap the benefits of that labor.
I manage engineering teams by day, so I've seen my fair share of folks that have these traits. They're not bad people, but they don't care about the quality of their work, and they're not thinking very hard about what they're producing.
10 years later, after a brief stint as an Electrical Distribution Engineer, Samsung hired me because one of their Directors at their Austin plant was specifically seeking out Navy Nuclear-trained Electronics Technician senior leaders — pure luck. While I was there, working nights on a 4/3 - 3/4 schedule, I got into UT Austin’s SWE MS program. That was hard work, and those 2 years are largely a blur. My wife also pulled more than her fair share of work taking care of our extremely young kids, lest I claim I was the I only one working hard.
After that, I convinced a hiring manager that I could do SRE work despite having zero industry experience, because I explained how I had done most of their job description at home. That was a mix of hard work and luck, I guess? Then it’s like any other industry: if you have experience, you can get interviews.
Meanwhile, I have family on both sides who have worked much harder than I have, and have far less to show for it. Tech pays absurdly well in many sectors, and I think people often forget that on here.