[crispyambulance]

   The ideal engineer is not emotionally involved in their work.

As much as some may profess to actually believe that it simply isn’t even close to true.

I am sure there are some unicorn exceptions (like the Spock character from Star Trek) but those who are excellent at their work also put a lot of time and effort into it, if not continuously then they’ve at least paid their dues for a span of decades. However they got there it represents a significant emotional investment involving pride and care or even a kind of love.

One can’t know everything all the time. There are ALWAYS going to be gaps in your own ability especially when you’re doing new and difficult work, and the way to bridge those gaps is to be driven by a desire to overcome them— in other words by CARING enough to keep trying.

The most successful people I can think of personally always care enough to overcome gaps in their ability. It looks like incompetence at first, then it becomes obsession, then it becomes problem solving, and it is ends with mastery, IF they CARE enough.

[roenxi]

Maybe. But if someone is a junior employee they aren't going to be able to identify all the specific tells for that. I know a passionate engineer who's meeting presence can often be mistaken for someone that is half asleep. He doesn't have a lot of respect for meetings and doesn't engage much. Would a junior engineer in that meeting identify that his dozey lids, slack jaw and mastery of simple programming conceal a burning passion for the art of great software? I'd bet not. You need to be quite good at programming to properly assess what is going on.