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Not only this, but very few people even ask the simple question, how do I become a better software engineer.

The four quadrants of competence applies.

Q1. Unconscious Incompetence. Q2. Conscious Incompetence. Q3. Conscious competence. Q4. Unconscious Competence.

Most people never leave Q1 phase, just muddling through their career and stagnate or burn out.

It takes lot of effort to jump from Q1 to Q2 and become aware how difficult things are in reality. Some take effort to become better and these types will usually succeed over time.

Lot of senior level people end up in Q3 and it's comfortable zone to be in. But, it takes more significant effort to jump to Q4, where they can gain additional pull to be able to lead and make significant more money.

It's significant journey and the timescale is not linear, it's logarithmic in some situations and extremely long in other situations.