> 1. The best engineers are obsessed with solving user problems.

The author lost me right here.

Not because he’s wrong about this in general - he is not. But it seems to not be any kind of differentiator at Google. Maybe the opposite is true- make it as screwed up as physically possible, then make it a little worse, then release it - that seems a lot closer to the lesson Google engineers learn. As long as you are “first” and shipped it.

Then get promoted, move on and meanwhile your crap code eventually gets the axe a decade later.