Few markets have a market for "bad" employees, surely? What matters in the tournament situation is that the number #2 employee isn't as good as the #1 employee, regardless of what absolute quality level we're talking about.
> Fwiw though, I think there's lots of room for the mediocre software engineer. Enough work requires little to no skill. I've done some of it myself b
Unlike janitors or checkout operators, software work can be outsourced. Outsourcing doesn't make sense for high-skill software engineering for two reasons. First, actually writing the code is only a small part of the job. And second, even when it comes to writing the code, there's still a real quality difference between top US candidates and top international candidates [1].
But software work that requires "little to no skill" is exactly the sort of thing you can successfully outsource.
No one needs the exceptional janitor.
Fwiw though, I think there's lots of room for the mediocre software engineer. Enough work requires little to no skill. I've done some of it myself b