The above trailer’s last line is “Now you’re thinking with portals…” and honestly I think that that mentality is what separates a good engineer from a mediocre one. Good engineers are of course naturally curious, but they have an innate ability to see around corners and make the impossible possible. Take the trailer, then relate it to your day to day life, you’re put in impossible tasks and sometimes in excruciating mental pain, yet somehow a good engineer will take that scenario and turn it into a win.
Good engineers know when to ask the right questions, and more importantly, which questions are the right question. They know how to take the ramblings of some C-suite madman and turn it into a polished user interface. They know what they don’t know, and who holds that knowledge.
Good engineers play by the rules, but know when to play loose with the rules. They don’t think outside the box, they turn the box inside out. A good engineers mind is always turning, always finding a new way out of the puzzle that is our jobs.
How do you start thinking with portals? Much like how you play the game…you start simple and suffer with the puzzles until you start learning. You notice things you wouldn’t have a few years ago. You get that gut feeling something is off. You start reading between the lines. You suffer. You fail. You learn. You get up and try again. You know when to ask to help. You know when to change tactics. And then one day, you succeed. You have senior+ on your title. People are asking you things because somehow you convinced them your opinion is worth something.
And it is, because now you’re thinking with portals….