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I don't think that's a downside. If you have that superpower, you can build it at a different place. The downside I find is that some people who can do this as
by brianpan 6y ago
I don't think that's a downside. If you have that superpower, you can build it at a different place.
The downside I find is that some people who can do this assume everyone can do this. If complexity is not difficult for you then simplifying (code, architecture, etc.) is not a priority and it becomes harder for other people to understand and maintain.
- mr_overalls 6y agoI'm the the go-to guy at a small government agency for the overall network/system architecture. There are some technical & memory-related prereqs (i.e. I have a CS degree, and I'm not a dummy), but mainly I know our systems so well because I've worked actively on them for more than a decade. It would probably take me a decade to build such a detailed mental model at another company or agency. And that's even assuming I could get hired. One consequence of working on an idiosyncratic, one-off architecture is that my mainstream tech skills have atrophied significantly. I definitely could not pass a leet-code interview at a FAANG anymore.
- eric-hu 6y agoDon’t write your future self off so easily. Now you know first hand how deeply and broadly you can learn a system. If life put you into a completely different system, you could build this familiarity and mental map faster. I bet you could—with careful thought—learn in 3-4 years what you learned in 10, and in your first year what you learned in your first 5.