> It's really, really easy to think you're one of God's Chosen (or Allahs, or Jehovas, or Buddha's, or ...) when you're at the top of the world, you've got a multi-trillion-dollar wind in your sails, you went to the best schools, and you make titanium and airaluminium dance on the wind and all that.
Fortunately nobody posting on Hacker News threads like these are relatively new engineers who think they're God's gift!
I'm mid-level engineer. Honestly, several staff+ engineers may not be spitting tech mumbo-jumbo, but they do dump all other kind of BS. Political BS, "tactical tornados"[1]. May not necessarily mean they were good at engineering, but just good with people skills. Obviously, not everyone is like that, but I would say many are.
> I find it amusing when I see titles such as "JavaScript engineer" or "HTML engineer", etc.
It is amusing indeed, but for a different reason — because "iron engineer" or "rubber engineer" (in case of hardware engineers) would be just as amusing.
The lack of formal scientific education doesn't mean that engineer in question doesn't have the exact same amount of knowledge — it merely means that he chose other ways to acquire it.
It doesn't really matter how nice, smart, talented, excited, curious, or well-meaning a person is. Judge them by their actions. What they build and what it is used for.
If you could pass a message them, please tell them to get a grip and realize how insanely creepy what they are doing is, and they should probably not do it, even if it makes them a bunch of money.
"Besides, if you're not doing any hacking in your free time outside of class anyway, you're probably not cut out for this career."
I really dislike this mentality and it unfortunately seems to be the expressed by a lot of engineers (at least ones that have an internet presence).
Just because you don't spend all of your time hacking away doesn't mean you aren't cut out for this career nor does it mean you can't be a great engineer.
This kind of mindset is only going to deter potentially good engineers from entering into the field.
Engineers making pronouncements like this bring me no end of amusement. Surely we've learned by now that we're pretty terrible at these sorts of guesses?
"Here’s why I think it’s important.
First, there is often an unrealistic expectation that an experienced engineer knows every technology in their field."
> this need to think you’re “the greatest” at everything and then beat yourself up when you realise you can’t be.
That's exactly the kind of mindset that Dan is trying to dispel.
Fortunately nobody posting on Hacker News threads like these are relatively new engineers who think they're God's gift!
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