03 Nov 2025 5 min read antifragility

Excellence as a Threat : Why Strong Engineers Get Pushed Out

The romanticised idea of the lone rebel fighting for truth has lost its meaning. In today’s corporate theatre, those who voice dissent loudly often benefit from the very system they claim to criticise. They are rewarded for drama, not depth. But this piece is not about them.

Not a Rebel, Just Better

This is about a quieter, more dangerous phenomenon: the silent eviction of excellence. Strong engineers, those who work with rigour, live close to fundamentals, and quietly uphold the craft, are increasingly sidelined. Not because they are disruptive. But because they are disturbing.

They show others what good looks like. And in fragile systems, that is unacceptable.

As Mick Kersten highlights, the average lifespan of companies in the 21st century has dropped drastically compared to those in the industrial era. This decline mirrors the erosion of depth and technical continuity. Startups, often portrayed as innovation engines, more closely resemble speculative ventures, sometimes glorified Ponzi schemes, thriving on hype rather than substance. The AI bubble, crypto surges, and earlier cloud hype cycles are all manifestations of the same pattern: superficiality sold as innovation.

In such environments, sustainable excellence is not seen as a necessity but as a threat. Strategic leadership and real engineering depth are not optional. They are the baseline, and possibly all that is needed.

Craft as a Threat

In organisations where speed, theatre, and consensus have overtaken truth, the presence of a highly competent engineer creates discomfort. They do not need to say much. Their work speaks, and that is the problem.

Their clean architecture highlights others’ shortcuts.
Their discipline exposes the chaos.
Their autonomy questions the chain of command.

This dynamic appears as an after-effect of a deeper cultural regression.

Mediocrity attracts mediocrity.

Where once prototypes were entrusted to seasoned professionals with experience in tangible, high-stakes industries, now companies place millions into ventures built by teams with no discipline, no framing, and barely any professional maturity. Founders increasingly trade excellence to hire friends, present fragile proofs of concept as minimum viable products, and rationalise inexperience as agility. The startup model rewards rapid scale, not rigorous build.

Over time, such individuals find themselves subtly removed:

Passed over during re-orgs
Avoided in hiring loops
Assigned to backwater projects
Labeled as "not collaborative" or "too intense"

The process is rarely formal. But the outcome is consistent.

Take, for example, a Staff engineer who quietly restructured a failing service, stabilising it under heavy load. Weeks later, during a re-org, he was reassigned, not celebrated. His style? “Too intense”. His crime? Doing the work without the performance.

The Fear of Being Measured

In environments disconnected from reality, truth becomes a liability. Without grounding in values or engineering principles, reputational games take over. The Facebook and Twitter generations have internalised a dopamine economy, seeking approval through digital thumbs-up and transient validation. This constant pursuit of affirmation distorts behaviour in the workplace, where perception overtakes contribution and applause replaces rigour. Status no longer comes from contribution. It comes from perception.

Evolutionary psychology reminds us: when values disappear, reputation becomes the only currency. As David Sloan Wilson and Elliott Sober explored in Unto Others, group survival often hinges on cooperation and moral signalling. But when true contribution is hard to measure, proxy behaviours dominate, like loyalty displays or reputational management. Instead of earning standing through excellence, individuals shield their status by managing optics and eliminating comparison.

As Chris Argyris described in his work on defensive routines, organisations often develop patterns to avoid embarrassment or conflict, inadvertently shielding themselves from the truths they need to confront. But instead of earning it through excellence, people protect it by managing optics and eliminating comparisons.

That is why real engineers become dangerous. Their presence makes mediocrity visible. And so the group, unconsciously or not, begins to defend itself. Not by improving. But by neutralising the signal.

The Quiet Patterns of Eviction

Hiring Hesitation: "Too senior for our current team" often means "will make us look bad"
Feedback Theatre: Performance reviews become tools to blur signal, while "not collaborative enough" often means "did not play politics"
Invisible Walls: Blocked from decision-making under the guise of "alignment"
Team Isolation: Strong teams get split or absorbed under weak leadership to ensure control
Downward Spiral: The quiet churn of top contributors accelerates decline. As excellence exits, the average becomes the ceiling. Each loss weakens the cultural immune system, and those who remain learn that safety lies in silence, not signal.

None of these moves are explicit. That is what makes them so insidious.

A Culture of Anti-Signal

Organisations built on comfort and visibility cannot coexist with deep craft. The presence of principled work becomes a threat to the status quo. Instead of pulling standards upward, systems regress to the mean.

This reflects a broader cultural shift. Genuine beliefs, once foundational to entire civilisations, are now diluted or dismissed, leaving behind a void. In their place, malevolent ideologies take root, ideologies that reject discipline, commitment, respect, or care.

These are not just alternative views: they are corrosive counterforces. We now observe a troubling form of immanence: not of transcendent good, but of negative values. Present at every layer of society, from media to education to the workplace, this inversion of value systems positions dedication as rigidity and truth as offence. Everyone is a victim, and those who strive are cast as the enemy.

Due to their youth, cultural malleability, and weak institutional memory, tech companies are particularly susceptible. Structures that once preserved excellence now disintegrate into reputation-driven theatre. Without firm roots in principle, these ecosystems reward fragility and punish depth.

When the average defines safety, the outlier is the danger.

And so we reach a paradox: the more committed you are to excellence, the more likely you are to be pushed out, unless the system explicitly protects and rewards signal.

These patterns are not abstract. They manifest daily in organisational life, and often go unnoticed until damage is done.

What to Watch For

If you are in a leadership role, ask yourself:

Are we avoiding excellence under the guise of "culture fit"?
Have we confused low friction with high performance?
Do we protect teams that speak truth or those that generate comfort?
Are our top engineers feeling trusted — or slowly removed?

Are we hiring for excellence without ensuring it can survive in our system? Because hiring without protection breeds disillusionment ... and accelerates churn.

And most critically:

Are you, as a leader, amplifying excellence or silently allowing its erosion?

Leadership functions as a force multiplier. If one holds a genuine commitment to craft, one must ensure operation within an environment where good work compounds, where principled engineers thrive rather than merely endure. Without such a setting, even the strongest intentions deteriorate into waste.