What do the top 1% of software engineers do that the other 99% do not?

Anyone could do this, even you.

The top 1% of software engineers do something every day that the other 99% do not. I see this over and over again and the difference is startling.

I have a friend who easily is what I would consider a top 1% software engineer. As an example of this, I must share a story.

When my friend and I met, he was interviewing for a job on my team. He was a bit scatterbrained, but in a brilliant sort of way. Clearly he could code and had built many, many things. He is very much a builder. He also collects hobbies.

We ended up sitting next to each other and I would basically drive him crazy going back and forth on insane ideas about software engineering and architecture. It was fun, well for me at least.

After like six months, he was tasked to build (largely by himself), a credit card processing api like Stripe or Braintree. There were no resources for this project beyond his time and enough budget to do certification and so on.

Along with the help of a super brilliant “IT guy”, who ended up doing much of the architecture and coding along the way as well, the two of them managed to build an incredible payments platform that ran on Amazon Web Services. I believe they were the first to pull this off in a way that was PCI compliant, certified, and secure to whatever specifications and so fort are required for that sort of thing.

Anyhow, both of these guys are top tier developers. And as you would imagine, years later they are working on building another payments platform for a mobile payments startup. And now that I think about it, both of these guys have the same habit that I’ve seen with other top 1% developers.

So what is this weird habit of the top 1% of software engineers?

They are always building something. Not just at work. Outside of work too. They are always building.

These are people who write code every day at their job and then go home and write code on something else that they want to exist. As one of those people, I kinda know what that’s about.

Now, I think it’s some kind of obsession with creating or making things. In the past people would build cars or houses or things like that. Now it’s code. And for many of us it’s just what we do. It only looks weird from the outside. But if you write cod every day, it’s normal like a warm fuzzy blanket on a cold winter’s day.

And I’ve seen this obsessive behavior in other fields. Top NBA basketball players like LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant are famous for practicing and training every day harder than anyone else, even after they reach MVP status. 

Warren Buffett, who has been the richest man or among the richest men in the world for decades still goes to work every day to invest and grow his business, even though he’s well into his 80’s. He still reads and studies all day long. He does not need to. He wants to. He has to. It’s his life’s work.

Ya know, I play guitar and I like to learn about guitar players. And I’ve probably seen dozens of interviews where the best players, you know guys like John Mayer, Steve Vai, Robben Ford, Joe Bonamassa, etc. They all end up saying some version of the same thing, which is about playing guitar every day. And you know, practicing and getting better. And they’ll usually play for hours a day because it’s just what they love to do. Like, what else would they do?

So that obsession that drives someone to do what they do, whether they are being paid to do it or not, whether anyone is telling them to do it or not, allows them to train even when they are no good. And it allows them to keep training when they are great. They make something, they do these things because they must. They have to. They are obsessed with it.

It is their life’s work.

And this is what I believe makes someone top 1% in any field, including software engineering. When it’s your obsession. When it’s your life’s work. When it’s what you would do whether you get paid to do it or not. When it’s something you want to learn about and study no matter if anyone tells you to do it. That is the quality that the top 1% of programmers have in common.

And, it’s a rare thing indeed.

-Brian