I used to work with an engineer who felt the same way. At one point, I was asked by management to help him out because a product release had fallen behind by nearly a year. He was working very diligently to implement a nearly impossible specification (300+ hour battery life with a standard 9V), and was trying all kinds of sleep modes and stuff. I asked him what was the need which was driving the 300 hour lifetime and making him do so much work. He said, "I'm an engineer. It's my job to make the design meet the requirements."

I went and talked to the customers and other stakeholders, and found out that 300 hours was actually a nice-to-have. 48 hours with some margin was absolutely necessary, and 100 hours was better than equivalent devices on the market. We got buy-in to change the requirements and released the next week with a 100 hour lifetime.

Just an idea what a different perspective can bring.