I think you'd find other physical engineering jobs are very similar at scale.
Most poeple out there building new rail are building them in situations similar to how other people have already built rail: apply known best practices given the intricacies of the current situation. Very few people are doing things like "building the worlds first rail line across a floating bridge" (Seattle I-405).
Even something like DeepSeek in China, wasn't necessarily so much about big AI breakthroughs as it was low level optimization of existing hardware. At the end of the day, even big achievements are built on piles and piles of what seems like drudgery, I guess it's just about feeling like that drudgery is contributing to something great.
Most poeple out there building new rail are building them in situations similar to how other people have already built rail: apply known best practices given the intricacies of the current situation. Very few people are doing things like "building the worlds first rail line across a floating bridge" (Seattle I-405).
Even something like DeepSeek in China, wasn't necessarily so much about big AI breakthroughs as it was low level optimization of existing hardware. At the end of the day, even big achievements are built on piles and piles of what seems like drudgery, I guess it's just about feeling like that drudgery is contributing to something great.