On engineering

I’m writing this note off the cuff because I just watched the latest Veritasium video, and I’m overexcited. It’s one of those moments where something you already knew clicks suddenly.

The video talks about the engineering behind ASML’s EUV lithography machines, one of the most complex devices ever built. Since these machines are responsible for producing the core of modern PCs, they are a central asset in our economy. Billions are poured into their development, a process that spans decades.
What makes this kind of engineering fascinating to me is not just the final machine, but the sheer amount of time, failed attempts, and belief required before anything actually works.

The video is very well made and manages to explain, in a way that’s easy to follow, the stages of developing and bringing something entirely new into existence. It’s an achievement that, on a smaller scale, every engineer eventually has to face.

I often find myself, when talking with friends or colleagues from other departments, trying to explain problems I’ve encountered at work. More often than not, quick solutions are offered (and I know I do the same when someone explains a problem outside my own context).
Without the full window of constraints and history, complexity is easy to underestimate.
From the outside, problems often look simple. From the inside, they rarely are.

Decisions made in the past shape the ones we can make today, yet that context is usually invisible to anyone who wasn’t there when those choices were originally made.
Of course, this isn’t true for every field or every role, but much of day-to-day work tends to focus on the present and on relatively short time horizons. You solve this task this morning, this problem today, this issue this week. Sometimes you get bigger challenges that keep you busy for longer, but they are still framed in relatively short cycles.

Engineering is different.
You constantly work on projects that span months or even years, where the choices you make today directly affect weeks of future progress. And when those choices turn out to be wrong, you often have to step back, question your assumptions, and accept delays as part of the process.

That’s what I like about my job.