Refusing to Be Average
I read something recently that stopped me cold.
It was a piece about Philip Su, a guy who earned eight promotions in eight years at Microsoft and went on to become a distinguished engineer at Meta. His explanation for why most careers stall was blunt: if you’re exactly as smart and exactly as hardworking as everyone around you, then by definition, you’re average.
Sit with that for a second. Smart and hardworking isn’t the differentiator. It’s the entry fee. Everybody in the building already paid it. If your whole strategy is to grind a little harder than the person next to you on the exact same work everyone else is chasing, you’ve signed up to be one of the crowd.
According to Su, the people who separate themselves don’t just outwork the pack. They work on something different. They find the unglamorous problem nobody wants, the non-consensus bet nobody’s claimed, and they plant their flag there.
Why It Hit So Hard
The reason that line landed the way it did is because it put words to something I’ve been living my whole life. I just never had the framework for it.
My dad never gave me complicated advice. He gave me one rule, and he repeated it until it became part of who I am: whatever you do, be the best at it.
Going out to play soccer? Be the best on that field. Heading to work? Be the best one in that building. It didn’t matter what the “it” was. Be passionate about it, work your ass off, and don’t accept being just another guy doing the thing. That was the standard in our house.
Where It Showed Up
I got into tech in 2006. Nothing glamorous. I started as a computer tech, fixing machines, solving whatever problem landed in front of me. From there I moved into a NOC, watching over networks while most people were asleep, learning how systems actually behave when they break.
Those weren’t jobs people fight over. But my dad’s voice was in my head the whole time. So I was the tech who actually cared why the machine failed, not just how to reimage it. I was the NOC guy who wanted to understand the alert, not just acknowledge it and pass the ticket. Every role was a chance to level up, and I treated it that way. I never looked at where I was as a ceiling, only as the floor for whatever came next.
Reading Su’s take, I realized: that was the differentiation he’s talking about. Caring about the unglamorous problem when everyone else just wanted to close the ticket. I wasn’t following a career strategy. I was following my dad’s rule. Refusing to be average wasn’t a tactic I picked up from an article. It’s the operating system I’ve been running on since before I ever touched a server.
Why This Idea Matters More Than Ever
Su’s point isn’t just a nice framework. It’s a survival skill in this market. Let’s be honest about where we are right now. There are too many “software engineers.” Too many “DevOps engineers.” The titles are everywhere, the resumes all read the same, and the market is flooded with people who check the same boxes, hold the same certs, and chase the same trendy skills at the same time.
So how does anyone stand out?
Not by being 5% better at the thing everyone else is doing. That’s Su’s whole point: that’s still average, just with more effort. Standing out means finding the problem next to the crowded one. The tool nobody asked for, the broken process nobody wants to own, the gap everyone complains about but nobody fixes. You make it yours. It means bringing passion when everyone else is going through the motions, and continuing to level up when everyone else got comfortable.
That’s not a job-market hack. That’s a mindset. And it’s one that has to be renewed every single day, because average is the default. Average is what happens when you stop pushing.
What I’m Taking From It
Sometimes you read something and learn a new idea. Other times you read something and recognize a truth you’ve been carrying for years. This was the second kind.
Su gave me the language: don’t compete on smart and hardworking, because everyone already brought those. My dad gave me the instinct twenty years earlier: whatever you do, be the best at it. Put them together and the path forward is clear. Keep finding the problems nobody else wants to claim, keep bringing more passion than the room requires, keep treating every role as the floor, never the ceiling.
Refusing to be average got me here. In a market this crowded, it’s also the only thing that keeps you moving forward.
