First published June 2017. I had been coaching at Facebook for 6 years at this point. I wanted to reflect on how the most effective people got to wher

Software Design: Tidy First?

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2024-09-15 21:00:08

First published June 2017. I had been coaching at Facebook for 6 years at this point. I wanted to reflect on how the most effective people got to where they were.

After coaching hundreds of engineers, I got to thinking about why more people don’t reach the top levels. Part of it is the curve—the top 3% is always going to be the top 3%. Part is bias—from childhood through education through a career some talent is repressed based on gender, melanin, or just the vagaries of geography.

Even with all the privileges, most folks don’t make it to the elite level. Some folks do make it, though, but to get there they have to pass through the Gates of Paradox:

Longevity/diversity. Elite engineers stick with projects long enough to see the consequences of their decisions. Insight is best mined deep in maintenance. At the same time, elite engineers have enough diversity of projects to separate context-dependent lessons from more general ones.

Success/failure. Elite engineers need to succeed enough to maintain confidence and initiative but they also need to fail enough to question themselves and their assumptions when doing so is valuable.