[hirako2000]

I do believe in hardship. As sacrifice. It yields long term benefits for oneself, and for society.

But submissions into slavery for immediate gain accomplishes little, and costs society a lot more (physical and mental health issues are a huge burden).

Those parodies you saw, they were caricature of elite engineers, who sacrificed decades of his life to become so competent. Can work from home, eat pasta while glancing over a PR and just hit approve.

That you resent the luxury doesn't make it undeserved privilege.

[pdimitar]

I've met programmers who severely outclassed me. It was extremely uncomfortable and it took me months to accept that reality and reshape my hurt ego into curiosity and desire to learn from someone clearly superior in the craft.

That being said, most people in the privileged positions you described are there by sheer luck and connections. In the very very best-case scenario that offends them the least: they stumbled upon an opportune position and were smart enough to make full use of it... in the first 6 months (when people pay the most attention and lasting impressions are formed). And then rode the reputation they made for years. Their value as engineers on the team after the initial honest burst of productivity becomes... very unclear from that point and on, shall we say.

Again, I've met engineers who fully deserved their privileges. 2-3 times over 24 years of career though (a good chunk of it as a contractor so I've been around). My anecdotal evidence obviously means nothing but we all develop pattern-matching skills with time, making me think what I saw is generally the statistical curve that would apply almost everywhere. Maybe.