> It's so rare, and lovely, when you run into an engineer who can not only figure out how to do the task they're being assigned, but run through the next couple

> It's so rare, and lovely, when you run into an engineer who can not only figure out how to do the task they're being assigned, but run through the next couple of steps in the future taking the team strengths, company strategy, and product shortcomings into account. Probably because engineers like that often won't want to work in environments where they're "assigned" "tasks". If you want people who take initiative and lead, you need to give them the space to do that! Otherwise, the rare successes you're seeing are from people who not only have the strengths you outlined but also have the patience, skills and mental energy to fight through a culture and process that structurally pushes them to be low-ownership task-takers.