> Surely we are way past the point where someone knows how the whole thing works, all the way down.

So you are disagreeing with this statement and saying that, in fact, you are the person who knows how the whole thing works?

I knew tech work produced some large egos, but sheesh.

This type of person exists, and while rare, not as rare as some seem to assume.

There is nobody who exists who would be able to recreate a modern computer from scratch.

No one person could recreate the pyramids from scratch either, and that's a pile of rocks

But they could teach others the principle and have them follow their directions to recreate it.

I'm saying no such person, even one who built up a team that they taught, exists for the modern computer.

When you say 'modern' do you mean with photolithography?

Yes, I do, keeping with the spirit of re-building the metaphorical "baths" of modern civilization.

But even if I didn't mean that, there still is nobody who could do it.

Not at all diminishing what you do, but surely you have a limit past which you say "that's outside of my expertise, or what's reasonable for me to gain expertise given the scope of this issue"?

For instance, I manage a team that does "full stack" development, where full stack means I regularly interact with mechanical and manufacturing, operations, electrical engineers, battery and radio people, embedded developers, mobile, and most aspects of backend engineering. We had an issue where one of our chip suppliers changed their FW, didn't tell us, and we literally were taking apart units to get to the bottom of why units off the line weren't working properly. We go pretty deep. Still, at some point we throw our hands in the air and say "Hardware is hard, it's in the name."

This was meant to be in the context of hosting software services on AWS. Certainly there is a limit. If a MBP get a crack in the case, I'm not going to figure out how to machine a piece of aluminum into a new case, I'll replace the laptop.

You know how to debug kernel issues? You know how AWS virtualization works and how to diagnose a problem with the AWS networking stack?

You know how to debug kernel issues? Yes

You know how AWS virtualization works and how to diagnose a problem with the AWS networking stack? Yes, and yes assuming that everything AWS is responsible for is operating within spec. Obviously, I don't have access to their switches, and cannot see anything at layer 1 or 2.

These are not as hard things as you make them sound. They are the things traditional sysadmins spent time understanding.

But I am also incredulous by the parent.

I wouldn’t be able to diagnose traces on a motherboard or a defective (but partially functioning) CPU.

I wouldn’t be able to diagnose irregular voltage conditions or drop offs.

The amount of stuff that I know I couldn’t diagnose is absurdly high, but the amount I don’t even know that I can’t diagnose is higher still.

And my job, like the parents, is to drill down and spend time in specifics.

I also specialize in being great at everything.