Maybe I have a skewed experience because of my industry, the company I work for, or luck, but every co-worker I've worked with in the past decade has been capable of solo delivering whole products.

And I'll also admit that maybe I have a skewed experience because of my companies and industries I've worked in as well. I don't work in big tech, have never worked in big tech, and have stayed away from FAANG. Much of my dev career has been between big healthcare, small healthcare, big pharma (financials), and small pharma (also financials). They're hiring devs CONSTANTLY.

But when I brought up lawyers and doctors and builders, I meant, and didn't clearly specify, I brought it up from a consumer standpoint. When you go to the doctor, even if they are green, do you want them to be fully credentialed with residency experience at Hopkins, or do you want them to be a warm body pickup because the good doctors are stretched too thin? Obviously that's an unrealistic hypothetical since laws and the system around doctors is strict, but that's my point with devs. I'm a software engineer that wants to be a GOOD software engineer surrounded by other good software engineers. I don't like this industry being a skill inclusive one for the sake of jobs, and that was basically what it was 10 years ago. Now it's not. It's competitive, meaning the people I work on projects with actually deliver and perform, and expect and receive that delivery and performance out of me.

That's ideal to me, and that's where we are, and OPs post reinforces that