I think your biases have caused you to misread my original comment and attribute to me some beliefs with which you disagree. > vastly more boring CRUD work I

I think your biases have caused you to misread my original comment and attribute to me some beliefs with which you disagree. > vastly more boring CRUD work I don't do CRUD work and no one even close to my group does that. Are you a web programmer by chance? We work on systems software. If you've dealt with that I think you might agree that there isn't a lot of grunt work involved. Maybe when it comes to writing some tests but even then it can be fairly technical and require a lot of systems-level knowledge. FWIW, I'm not saying I'm personally smarter than anyone. I got lucky and got a job working with the smartest, most dedicated and focused people I have ever met in decades of work. They're smart, and working with them requires some combination of extreme personal sacrifice, intense focus, and a deep and wide knowledge of software, hardware, CS theory and language issues.