"Engineers are known to have enormous egos"
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It's 2015 and I'm crammed in a small room of at least 80 students.

It's the first class in our first year of software engineering and our teacher started our year off with a warning.
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"Don't let things go to your head." she said.

"We tend to think we're special and separate from others in society because we study engineering. Because we learn very hard things like math, science and software. Like we're better than everybody else."

Then came her real warning.

"Check your egos at the door. Don't let it get to your head. Because there are some engineers out there who think they are literal gods."

I think most of us laughed at the idea. But the teacher wasn't joking.

She tried to explain why it happened like this:

Imagine we have a group scientists, inventors and engineers. If we divided them up by role, we could say that:

• The role of scientists is to discover and find new things that are part of our physical world.
• The role of inventors is to use the knowledge that currently exists and use innovation and creativity to find unique solutions to problems.
• The role of an engineer is to create, design, build, test and refine systems for those solutions.

Engineers are unlike the other two, because they create and build.

So as the thinking goes, if gods are creators and so are engineers...

With enough delusion...

A sprinkle of crazy...

And a pinch of narcissism...

We can say engineers ARE gods.

Or at least, the closest thing to gods.

This, even 9 years later, is still very funny to me.

The "godlike engineer who is perfect in every way" became a meme in my small friend group at the time.

"The perfect engineer probably has the perfect 6-pack!"

"Yeah! And is like a super saiyan with hair and everything. Nothing can harm him."

"HAHAHA YES!!! And he can do everything, all the time. Perfect teeth, never stressed, does everything in a project by himself and more."

I love this idea of the perfect engineer doing everything perfectly, all the time, forever. Because it ties into this idea I've been wanting to explore deeper in this newsletter.

The idea of becoming exceptional at what you do.

(It is in the name of this newsletter after all!)

In our case, it's about becoming exceptional frontend developers.

There's just one problem.

Defining what makes somebody an "exceptional frontend developer" is very, very hard.

Firstly because the definition of exceptional is literally to be an exception. Different and unique from others. "Unlike the rest".

Our first thought might be "oh, then we just have to strive to be the absolute best at our job."

Or maybe "To become exceptional, it takes years to master the languages and frameworks. Only then can we be exceptional".

But if that was the case, wouldn't that just make you an excellentdeveloper?

Like, if all we did was read all the Javascript books, and learned the frameworks and libraries and became good developers and helped others where we could...

I'd argue that we're being great, maybe even excellent developers!

But if that was our metric - to be the best with our tools... isn't everybody striving for that anyway?

And if everybody was striving for that anyway... it means we're all doing the same...

Which means we're NOT being the exception! Or maybe better said, it's a LOT harder to be exceptional in the first place.

There's also a counter point to it all - how do you even MEASURE how good you are at a tool or framework or library or whatever?

And even then - how do you SHOW you're that good at those tools or frameworks or libraries or whatever?

Because we not only want to be exceptional developers for ourselves and our own satisfaction...

We want to have the evidence and work available to show to others (most likely to employers *wink wink*) that we are exceptional and capable of a ton of great things.

Doing that also means getting more higher quality and higher-paying jobs in the future. Which is also a huge motivator for striving to be exceptional.

And so if we were to break it all down, there seems to be 2 components to being exceptional:

1. You have try and be different and unique in some way in your field that, compared with others, makes you the exception.
2. That different and unique thing you strive for has to showcase your knowledge and expertise in a positive way, which makes it easy for others to see you're exceptional.

One way to becoming exceptional that fits both these descriptions might be to get a stamp of approval from some entity where most are considered exceptional.

What comes to mind is getting hired by a FANG company or going to a high prestige college like Harvard.

There, the exceptional comes from the exclusivity of the organization that you form a part of and what being a part of it means.

The logic goes:

• FANG companies are known for hiring the best of the best. Their employees get paid the most for being the best.
• You get hired by a FANG company.
• Therefore, you are the best. There's few people like you. You're exceptional!

But if you don't want the stamp of approval from a big organization or, who knows, aren't interested in it - is there any other ways to being exceptional?

Yes, there is.

And those ways are... something I'm still trying to put together in my head.

For now, I'm just interested in getting your thoughts on this take.

It's something I've been thinking about lately and since the newsletter is started to get a tiny bit of traction, (hi Billy fans!) thought it was high time to talk about being exceptional and what that means.

So here's the question - what is missing for YOU to be exceptional? And why? Do you agree or disagree?