Nice way of putting it. It can be quite intimidating and thus discouraging to look at what you THINK the next highest class of problems is (which is often simply looking too many floors up).
Incidentally the quote on my linkedin banner is "the reason that we don't see our problems is that the means by which we solve them are the source."
Part of my frustration in software is that I've been forced back down to the ground floor at least six times as new technologies and methods are created for doing the exact same thing I was doing thirty years ago. But now they are more complicated and require broader and deeper understanding than before. Nothing like learning how to deploy a website for the umpteenth time in one's life.
Not that I want to be the guy doing that, but as you said, we all have our reasons for staying roughly where we are.
A couple of thoughts on a crude test for whether or not someone's solving better problems. Interesting work is probably combinatorial. You work on X and then you build on it to work on Y (which includes your work on X). It probably also is plain different. I was watching the Dartmouth commencement address by Roger Federer and he said he's played some 1500+ singles matches in his career. Each of these occasions was the sme, yet different in time, conditions, opponent, context.
Another point that probably matters: Why/how do we find ourselves at the ground floor? You said forced back down to the ground floor. That tends to suck. The agent forcing you back down matters too. If it is market forces/technologies, it probably is slightly easier to accept than if it is arbitrary exec decision-making.
It is easier to accept, I'll grant that, but it is also annoying because it means there is never true mastery to 1. launch you to the next set of interesting problems, 2. protect you from ambitious noobs.
Furthermore, a good amount of the time, the new trends are actually spearheaded by collectives of those ambitious noobs. They think they are solving an existing problem in a novel way, but they are just making the same mistakes that were made 10, 20, 30, even 40 years ago, but with slightly different constraints.
Some argue not knowing history of the profession is the problem and that may be true, but nerds don't much care about that as a rule, I've noticed. That's why my focus is on systems, because an understanding of systems can teach you the same lessons, IMO, and it's more applicable and interesting to them.
But this is just me complaining and I digress. I think the biggest hurdle for me (and likely many people) is simply luck. I hate to put it that way, but luck in ending up with the right team, the right company, that grows at the right pace, meets and conquers its crises, makes the right decisions, continues to hire the right people, and so on. We don't all have the plurality of options in the first place (I have several real life constraints on my options that are outside my control and yet I feel like most people are even more constrained than me, even if self-constrained), and time is never on our side.
I suppose that all comes down to the point of your stack though doesn't it. ;)
Nice way of putting it. It can be quite intimidating and thus discouraging to look at what you THINK the next highest class of problems is (which is often simply looking too many floors up).
Incidentally the quote on my linkedin banner is "the reason that we don't see our problems is that the means by which we solve them are the source."
Part of my frustration in software is that I've been forced back down to the ground floor at least six times as new technologies and methods are created for doing the exact same thing I was doing thirty years ago. But now they are more complicated and require broader and deeper understanding than before. Nothing like learning how to deploy a website for the umpteenth time in one's life.
Not that I want to be the guy doing that, but as you said, we all have our reasons for staying roughly where we are.
A couple of thoughts on a crude test for whether or not someone's solving better problems. Interesting work is probably combinatorial. You work on X and then you build on it to work on Y (which includes your work on X). It probably also is plain different. I was watching the Dartmouth commencement address by Roger Federer and he said he's played some 1500+ singles matches in his career. Each of these occasions was the sme, yet different in time, conditions, opponent, context.
Another point that probably matters: Why/how do we find ourselves at the ground floor? You said forced back down to the ground floor. That tends to suck. The agent forcing you back down matters too. If it is market forces/technologies, it probably is slightly easier to accept than if it is arbitrary exec decision-making.
What else?
It is easier to accept, I'll grant that, but it is also annoying because it means there is never true mastery to 1. launch you to the next set of interesting problems, 2. protect you from ambitious noobs.
Furthermore, a good amount of the time, the new trends are actually spearheaded by collectives of those ambitious noobs. They think they are solving an existing problem in a novel way, but they are just making the same mistakes that were made 10, 20, 30, even 40 years ago, but with slightly different constraints.
Some argue not knowing history of the profession is the problem and that may be true, but nerds don't much care about that as a rule, I've noticed. That's why my focus is on systems, because an understanding of systems can teach you the same lessons, IMO, and it's more applicable and interesting to them.
But this is just me complaining and I digress. I think the biggest hurdle for me (and likely many people) is simply luck. I hate to put it that way, but luck in ending up with the right team, the right company, that grows at the right pace, meets and conquers its crises, makes the right decisions, continues to hire the right people, and so on. We don't all have the plurality of options in the first place (I have several real life constraints on my options that are outside my control and yet I feel like most people are even more constrained than me, even if self-constrained), and time is never on our side.
I suppose that all comes down to the point of your stack though doesn't it. ;)