Through these years, I’ve created and refined a simple model for evaluating engineer performance. It has four levels: A mediocre engineer does what is asked. A good engineer does what is asked, and does it well. A great engineer does what is asked, looks for possible problems, edge cases, and overlooked issues, and solves those as well. An outstanding engineer does all of the above, but also tells you about problems you didn’t even know existed, and plans for situations you never envisioned.
