Unpopular Engineering Success Opinions | Generated by AI
Question: What are some unpopular opinions about being successful in engineering?
Answer:
Here are some genuinely unpopular (but widely observed in practice) opinions about what actually drives long-term success in engineering, especially in industry:
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Raw intelligence matters far less than most engineers want to believe. After a certain baseline (roughly top 10–20% of technical ability), grit, politics, communication, and luck dominate outcomes. Plenty of “genius” engineers plateau at senior level while “merely above-average” ones become VPs or CTOs because they play the game better.
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Leetcoding and algorithm mastery is largely a waste of time after your first job. Almost nobody in real engineering roles (outside FAANG-tier companies or interview prep) solves inverted binary trees on whiteboards. The skill that actually compounds is the ability to navigate messy, poorly documented legacy systems quickly.
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Writing clean, elegant, “perfect” code is often a bad career move. Shipping functional code fast, even if it’s ugly, gets you promoted in most companies. The people who refactor everything for beauty are frequently seen as blockers and get stuck at mid-level.
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Deep specialization is a trap for most engineers. The “10×” specialists often become the first to be laid off when their niche is deprioritized. Generalists who can jump domains (and take on vague, high-visibility projects nobody else wants) have far more resilient careers.
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Most successful engineers are secretly mediocre at the actual technical work. They excel at credit-taking, narrative-building, and aligning with powerful stakeholders. The ones who insist “only the work should matter” tend to burn out bitter.
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Mentorship is overrated; sponsorship is everything. A mentor gives advice. A sponsor puts their reputation on the line to get you promoted. Chasing the former while ignoring the latter is why many talented engineers stagnate.
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Working 60–80 hour weeks early in your career is one of the highest-ROI moves you can make—if you’re at a high-growth company. The people who loudly proclaim “work-life balance from day one” often watch their peers who grinded for 3–5 years lap them financially and title-wise for the rest of their careers.
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A master’s or PhD is usually a net negative for industry success (outside niche research roles). The opportunity cost in delayed earnings and experience is massive, and most companies don’t pay meaningfully more for it.
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Open-source contributions and personal side projects are mostly theater. Recruiters and managers claim to care, but almost nobody actually checks your GitHub unless you’re a known name. A strong internal network and visible business impact beat 10k GitHub stars every time.
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Charisma > competence in the long run. The engineer who can explain complex ideas simply to non-technical executives will always out-earn and out-promote the brilliant but socially awkward one.
These opinions are unpopular because they bruise egos—especially among younger engineers who want to believe that pure technical excellence is enough. Reality in most companies is far more political and pragmatic.