You have to know how to justify your work. Places like Netflix have teams like these because they literally print money, with each engineer often saving the company millions if not tens of millions of dollars annually. It’s hard to argue with results.
Almost every engineer I’ve worked with have this skill level, but they’re not given the leeway, direction, or advice to get to the conclusion. Netflix must have an amazing culture in these areas.
I've been a high performance systems engineer for a number of investment banks over the last 10+ years and people with deep knowledge like that are quite rare; that's why we get paid handsomely.
Mind sharing what field you work in that gathers so much talent like that?
Knowledge != skill. With the skill you can acquire the knowledge given the right conditions and motivation. I would say the vast majority of engineers I work with have never had the need or opportunity to invest the time or experiential opportunities to acquire the knowledge required - but they COULD. I actually find that quite sad, and hence my depression I noted. Nowadays this is extending all the way through school. Machine architecture and low level machine microcode etc isn’t universally taught in CS programs any more.
I’ve worked in all the industries, including a long time in yours. We probably even overlapped or maybe worked together!
Very few workplaces value this skill because very few workplaces have a use for it. One service now runs 3x faster? You reduced the AWS bill for this one service by 2/3? That's not going to change the bottom line enough for anyone to care about, unless you're, well, Netflix.
