I had level 5’s telling me this shit when I was a (mis-leveled) 3 and they were doing the management bullshit thing of “bring me solutions not problems” bitch what do you think a staff/principal engineers job is if it isn’t finding problems before they find us? In a code as packed to the gills with tribal knowledge people don’t even know where the problems live. They just see the problem.

They stopped saying this when I reminded them that if I knew the answer I’d have their job. They still never actually lead anything.