[menaerus]

Maybe you can learn to be mediocre or good enough designer or similarly good enough or mediocre engineer. But I don't think you can actually learn to be a great designer or great engineer - it just takes a different set of skills and evolutionary and genetic material which isn't available to all the people. Some people are simply not good enough in logical and abstract reasoning, math, and similar range of skills which are essential for becoming a good engineer. Similarly someone who is a good engineer doesn't and likely can't have skills required to become a good designer, it just takes a brain which is hardwired and developed differently.

[paulhebert]

As someone who considers themselves a good engineer and a good designer (and does both professionally) I hope that last bit isn’t true

[menaerus]

Sure, this is why I said likely. If you are good in both then I believe this isn't something commonly found in people.

[threethirtytwo]

Hard disagree. Design is easy and trivial. Thinking it's hard is a sort of mass delusion. Engineering is the hard thing.