There are only 5,000 elite software engineers in the world (2025)

proc0

> The other 27 million people aren't doing nothing. They're the ones who take what the 5,000 build and turn it into products This is just the software industry's fault. More engineers could be elite, maybe not in their first 10 years of their career, but what companies do is cut that short and push engineers away from the technical work, even after a few years. My guess is that the elite engineers had the opportunity to invest in their technical knowledge from childhood.

ungreased0675

Another possibility: Elite software developers are never unemployed and will rarely or never surface in a resume pile. Mediocre to bad developers will be looking for new jobs fairly often.

microflash

I’ve found that most companies don’t want an elite engineer. They want “best for the bucks” engineers who’re often mediocre. If by accident, they do end up with an elite engineer, the company most likely doesn’t know what to do with them. Everyone gets beaten down to the same level of mediocrity, suffering the indifference of managers who don’t even know they’ve got an elite engineer. And, oftentimes, the incentives are aligned in the opposite direction.

jltsiren

By that same reasoning, there are more elite physicists, chemists, and biologists in total than there are elite scientists. Maybe that's even true due to some statistical mechanism. But if you are looking for a good physicist, you are probably not interested in hiring a top biologist. The same should be true at every level of specialization. The more specific your needs are, the more likely one of the candidates is about as good as anyone in that specialty.

georgemcbay

> There are only 5,000 elite software engineers in the world And at least 50,000 software developers are absolutely convinced they are one of the 5,000.

postalrat

Yesterday there were 5000. Today its 100. Tomorrow it will be 10000.

heliomattress

lets name them all, ill start. fabrice bellard

duhhhhh1212

https://www.pangram.com/history/cf411aa5-6872-4d7d-9475-8b0c... Don't waste your time.

MiroslavPokorny

How could a single person of even a team of a hundred possibly investigate, understand the goals and realities of a single country let alone the world ? This is just plain dumb to make or present a statement like this.

vivzkestrel

- jon skeet is one of em

skyberrys

How does this divide out by organization? Is there a few organizations that are responsible for 50% of the output of that market? I'm skeptical of so broadly applying a rule that comes from studying the authors of scientific papers.