I agree with the gist of this. After my initial "10k hours" learning the technical craft, my career progression as a product design engineer (I design hardware

I agree with the gist of this. After my initial "10k hours" learning the technical craft, my career progression as a product design engineer (I design hardware, mostly medical devices) has been driven by my ability to understand humans and their interactions with objects, not technical. It's important to keep up on the technical side, but that's not what drives good design and good designers in my field. It's Don Norman mind of stuff. I regularly work with long in the tooth designers, ex-ideo types, and they have a keen understanding of the human side of design that's difficult to teach and pick up quickly, it takes experience, wisdom. It's not about typing faster, clicking faster, or even deep technical details, it's the big picture stuff.