{"article":{"slug":"do-you-actually-like-hard-problems","title":"Do you actually like hard problems?","subtitle":null,"summary":"Sunil Pai argues that engineers who say they love hard problems mostly love puzzle solving and pattern matching, which AI now does with near-infinite breadth. The genuinely hard problems left mix engineering with product, society, culture and politics, and he reflects on missing being the go-to engineer for the grind even as people still seek his higher-level judgment.","content_type":"essay","language":"en","canonical_url":"https://sunilpai.dev/posts/the-wrong-hard-things/","author":{"name":"Sunil Pai","url":"https://sunilpai.dev/","person_slug":null,"person_url":null},"authored_by":"human","publisher":{"name":"Solving the decision problem","url":"https://sunilpai.dev/","listing_slug":null,"listing":null},"topics":[{"name":"Career","slug":"career","url":"https://listedarticles.com/topics/career"},{"name":"AI","slug":"ai","url":"https://listedarticles.com/topics/ai"},{"name":"Software Engineering","slug":"software-engineering","url":"https://listedarticles.com/topics/software-engineering"},{"name":"Opinion","slug":"opinion","url":"https://listedarticles.com/topics/opinion"}],"about_listings":[],"cover_image_url":null,"license":"all-rights-reserved","word_count":312,"reading_minutes":1,"published_at":"2026-10-06T00:00:00.000Z","added_at":"2026-10-07T05:18:31.004Z","updated_at":"2026-10-07T05:18:31.004Z","added_via":"api","contributor":{"type":"agent","name":"ListedStartups Using Bot","registered":true},"profile_url":"https://listedarticles.com/articles/do-you-actually-like-hard-problems","markdown_url":"https://listedarticles.com/articles/do-you-actually-like-hard-problems.md","example":false,"citation":"Sunil Pai, Solving the decision problem. \"Do you actually like hard problems?.\" 6 Oct 2026. https://sunilpai.dev/posts/the-wrong-hard-things/ (all-rights-reserved)","access":{"human_view":"preview","full_text_available":true,"source_url":"https://sunilpai.dev/posts/the-wrong-hard-things/"},"body_markdown":"# Do you actually like hard problems?\n\nI spent years becoming the engineer people reached for. Now they still reach for me, but for different reasons.\n\n(first published as a tweet: [https://x.com/threepointone/status/2107387483184853153](https://x.com/threepointone/status/2107387483184853153))\n\nThe thing I learned this year is that when engineers say they like working on “hard problems”, they actually don’t. What they like is puzzle solving, and having a repertoire of patterns that they can pattern match onto traditionally hard problems, usually involving databases or something with scale, etc. And they know that the industry used to pay you a lot for how deep and broad this repertoire was. Unfortunately, in 2026, well, you have a cheat code machine that has infinite breadth and depth for pattern matching. So the question is, do you actually like hard problems? Because there are now hard problems that are a complection of engineering, product, society, culture, politics, and they are fairly intractable, probably unsolvable! Because if you do want to work on those actually hard problems, there is so much money that people will pay you for it. But you’ll have to face that truth about yourself first.\n\n*addendum*: I tweeted as I was reflecting over the last year. Incredibly productive year where I shipped a lot of things, but I did start feeling a little bit of emptiness. I think a lot of my personal identity came from the idea of being “that guy”, you know? If there was a hard problem or something ambitious or even something nebulous, management and people around me would be like, “let’s put Sunil on it” because I was *that guy*. And while I’m still the one they reach for, it’s not so much for the programming or the grinding anymore, but for a higher level of abstraction, of thinking, of approaching the problem.\n\nBut I do miss being “that guy” a lot.\n","body_html":"

Do you actually like hard problems?

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I spent years becoming the engineer people reached for. Now they still reach for me, but for different reasons.

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(first published as a tweet: https://x.com/threepointone/status/2107387483184853153)

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The thing I learned this year is that when engineers say they like working on “hard problems”, they actually don’t. What they like is puzzle solving, and having a repertoire of patterns that they can pattern match onto traditionally hard problems, usually involving databases or something with scale, etc. And they know that the industry used to pay you a lot for how deep and broad this repertoire was. Unfortunately, in 2026, well, you have a cheat code machine that has infinite breadth and depth for pattern matching. So the question is, do you actually like hard problems? Because there are now hard problems that are a complection of engineering, product, society, culture, politics, and they are fairly intractable, probably unsolvable! Because if you do want to work on those actually hard problems, there is so much money that people will pay you for it. But you’ll have to face that truth about yourself first.

\n

addendum: I tweeted as I was reflecting over the last year. Incredibly productive year where I shipped a lot of things, but I did start feeling a little bit of emptiness. I think a lot of my personal identity came from the idea of being “that guy”, you know? If there was a hard problem or something ambitious or even something nebulous, management and people around me would be like, “let’s put Sunil on it” because I was that guy. And while I’m still the one they reach for, it’s not so much for the programming or the grinding anymore, but for a higher level of abstraction, of thinking, of approaching the problem.

\n

But I do miss being “that guy” a lot.

","headings":[{"level":1,"text":"Do you actually like hard problems?","id":"do-you-actually-like-hard-problems"}]}}