How to become a cracked engineer

January 2026

Do you know those guys who seem like they were born meant to be software engineers? The ones who are trusted by the whole team, the ones who can help with any issue, the ones who move fast, are deeply technical, and still can communicate well while being a big team player?

Well, I don't think they were born into it. A better frame of mind is to say that they've learned important skills throughout their journey, and they choose to be proactive with them every day. The main learning, therefore, is that anyone can become one of these "cracked engineers". I'll start by defining more deeply what this kind of engineer looks like in our day to day job.

The pillars of a cracked engineer

There are 3 main characteristics of these professionals:

• Sharp technical skill: they can reliably design, build, debug, and ship software.
• Good communication: they unblock others (and themselves) without adding noise. They are also one of the most present people on Slack.
• Drive and independence: they know what to do, and they don't wait until they are told.

The first point is reached by experience and dedication. The other two are mostly a choice you make daily. Anyone can become this sort of professional if they put in the effort.

Step by step on how to become one

1. Love to code and to work
   • Make coding a hobby.
   • Expect to work hard. There will be times in your career where you will out‑work most of your peers.
2. Get good
   • Build dozens of REAL projects on your own, ideally within one primary tech stack (you can vary once in a while but should have a focus).
   • Consume tech content to keep yourself up to date and thinking about software (for example, I watch Theo's channel. I watched all his videos and that made a difference).
3. Be business-aware
   • Understand goals, users, and how the product makes money.
   • Aim to be the person who knows what to do next and who can talk to the boss as a peer.
4. Be over-communicative
   • Write clearly and often. Share updates early (especially if something will take longer than expected).
   • Keep an eye on all Slack threads and be curious and helpful when you can.
   • Share ideas openly. Be humble when you're wrong and credit others when they're right.
5. Be proactively reliable
   • Do the things that are obviously yours before anyone asks.
   • Volunteer for more, even if you're not sure you have permission yet. If your bosses are unsure about you working on something, just bully them into needing to let you by showing a PR or a short recording.
6. Have good judgment
   • Default to public channels and tag the right people when asking something. Don't lean on one person every time.
   • Be respectful and professional.
7. Write well
   • Clean grammar and punctuation.
   • Know how to structure your ideas. Sometimes bullet points work, sometimes just plain text split into small paragraphs so it's not boring or looking too clumsy.

Do this and you'll become the engineer people trust. The one who moves fast, helps everyone, and gets paid a big load of money doing it. It's learnable. It's a choice you make every day.