I feel that I have an interesting relationship to this mentality. Many of the most impressive people I've known and looked up to in my career have been far from rewarded for the competence and confidence they brought to my workplaces. Indeed, I've seen a few of them fired, and some of them sidelined for years despite being appreciated and referred. I'm even cautious about referring them because, while impressive, they were brash and bold in ways that put them quickly at odds with their organizations.

We don't always, or even mostly, or often ever, work at an organization that wants to be impressed by their engineers, no matter how much they say they do. The sorts of places that actually do foster that are rare and all but impossible to get hired at. I don't have the luxury of working at somewhere where I'm impressed by my coworkers and look up to them. My career and mental health isn't comfortable or sustainable.

I'd love to fix this, but in the meantime, I often literally don't get to pick my manager and how they interact with me or value my team's work and priorities. I can tell you that the engineers who most impressed me and were appreciated by me were often not by management, and not brought onto projects. It may not be hard to be one, but it's often hard to keep being one.