[potatolicious]

> "I think there's a faction of engineers who want to work on interesting (which can be hard) problems, and those who want to work on interesting products."

In my experience this only describes 10% of the programmer population. The rest don't really want either, they just like the benefits and the paycheck.

They also don't work at Twitter, Google, or Apple, not many do anyhow.

Actually, I don't think the distinction really exists. Some people like to crack hard algorithmic problems, some people like to crack hard systems problems, others like to crack hard markets, or hard product verticals. It's all part of the same thing - people like to accomplish things that are hard to do and interesting to try.

[shadowmatter]

Agree that this only matters to 10% of the population. And yes, I'm totally oversimplifying it by creating only two categories. As to whether the distinction really exists, I personally believe that it does -- and the best anecdote I have is looking back on my reasons to leave Google. When I joined I wanted to work on hard/interesting problems, and when I left I wanted to work on interesting/impactful products.