Great products are created by great teams. It’s almost impossible to create anything of any meaningful scope, these days, without a team. There are “superman” engineers, like Linus Torvalds, that can create entire shipping architectures, but those are incredibly rare.
That said, the myth of the “cookie cutter” engineer is just that: a myth. Some cultures do better at it than others. I worked for a Japanese company, and they came very close to it, but at a cost that most folks here, would find prohibitive.
High-performing teams can be difficult to manage. There’s often significant differences in personalities, egos can be high, and everyone has an opinion that is the only “right” one.
Great teams require good management. It’s always fun to dis managers, but good ones are force multipliers, like nothing else.
