Individuals matter

Overview Individuals matter is an essay by Dan Luu that argues treating people as interchangeable resources leads to broken roadmaps, hiring, and retention decisions. It uses real-world examples from engineering organizations to illustrate how the non-fungibility of talent impacts project success and company health.

Key Takeaways

• Treating engineers as fungible "heads" undermines effective planning and budgeting.
• Roadmap accuracy depends on knowing who will execute tasks, not just abstract capacity.
• Compensation and attrition policies that ignore individual value drive loss of top talent.
• Managers need to consider individual strengths when forming teams and allocating work.
• Organizational metrics should reflect impact of people, not just headcount.

Who Would Benefit

• Engineering managers and directors designing roadmaps and staffing plans.
• Technical leaders interested in talent allocation and retention strategies.
• HR and compensation professionals working with engineering teams.
• Executives seeking to align budgeting with real engineering productivity.