The Manhattan Project Trap: Apple’s Warning on Why Siloed Engineering is Dead
Why "systems thinking"—not just subsystem execution—has become the premium skill in silicon.
In my opinion, the two most powerful ways to cultivate cross-domain awareness in highly complex technical environments (like semiconductors) is to cultivate curiosity bit-by-bit and teach others in small ways.
(Edit: I revised this article on 5/20/26 with sections and much richer insights, including the generational career gap, the compartmentalization in the Manhattan project and why we mistake curiosity for consumption)
I attended ISSCC in 2026, which is the “Olympics” of chip design and one of the most highly specialized conferences in the world. During a plenary talk, Hope Giles, VP HW PM at Apple, emphasized that system thinking and cross domain awareness will become critical skills as semiconductors and technology become more complex.
And I absolutely agree.
However, the advanced nature of technology work nowadays makes it difficult to develop this type of thinking in practice.
I’m writing this post because I notice a huge gap amongst the way job roles and defined nowadays, and the type of cross-domain thinking that is actually a premium as systems become more tightly integrated.
The Generational Career Gap
I’d argue that there is a perspective gap amongst leaders/more senior engineers and junior/mid level engineers nowadays. As companies have gotten bigger and more integrated, the former group have scaled their experience along with the development of the technology. This allowed them to get a much broader perspective of entire systems earlier in their career when they were less complex, and build their career capital through incremental ownership of complex systems.
Now, as systems have become more complex, most job descriptions are specifically tailored toward specific subsystem ownership of more complex systems, not broad ownership of less complex systems. This is causing gaps understanding amongst engineers where they have trouble describing the impacts their role had on the bigger picture.
Why Cross Domain Thinking is Easy to Say but Difficult in Practice
Due to structural and psychological factors, cross-functional awareness is hard to develop in complex technology organizations because it tends to reward specialized subsystem ownership with handoffs at interfaces.
To coordinate peoples efforts in designing a complex product, organizations are set up to flow down requirements to subsystem executors, and later integrated at the end. This is an unfortunate consequence of how we must coordinate work to be able to create complex products that meet performance demands of the market.
Some organizations are especially notorious for keeping information under tightly guarded wraps on a need-to-know basis. For some organizations, this is to prevent IP leaks, while for others, its for national security reasons.
The consequence of this is that big picture assumptions often do not make it to subsystem executors, and can lead to inefficient work being done as information is thrown over the wall. There have been a few times where I’ve asked “can I better understand why you need this?” or “can I sit in a meeting to better understand customer needs” and either told no or gotten spoon-fed information.
For instance, the Manhattan Project was one of the most heavily compartmentalized efforts in American history. Approximately 130k people worked on the project not knowing they were building a bomb. Only about 10 people knew of the projects purpose. This causes quite a stir amongst physicists like Richard Feynman, who thought it would make people “stupid and incompetent”. Compartmentalization even caused serious risks when workers handed Uranium without knowing what is was intended for. When these workers were read on and understood the purpose, they were able to better handle the uranium.
Cross domain thinking is also difficult psychologically because it requires you to admit to yourself what you don’t know. When you are an expert in a specific area, it often feels like a blow to the ego to not understand material in adjacent domains and to ask someone in that field to explain something simple to them. This requires a huge amount of psychological safety amongst members of an organization, which may not always be present. Not all organizations and teams really emphasize psychological safety or rather treat it as “fluff”.
Of course, businesses need to make money, execution on set priorities is important and information does need to be controlled to some extent.
How to develop Cross Domain Awareness
It can be very difficult and frustrating to develop cross-functional awareness in such environments that rely on sole handoffs at interfaces and deadline pressure. Trust me, I’ve had my experiences.
However, the two most powerful ways to develop cross-functional awareness within such organizations is by cultivating your own curiosity and by teaching others in small ways. Let me explain.
In my experience, which I teach something, whether as a TA in undergrad, mentoring others, or writing dense technical Substack articles, it forces me to consider what the learner doesn’t know. There’s also a risk of me being wrong when I put information out there. This forces me to do a ton of research and filter out complex information to convey what is important for them. In the process, it helps me sharpen my own mental models.
Teaching is more about the process of synthesizing information on your own so that both you and the learner mutually benefit from the information exchange. This is the reasoning behind the old adage, “You remember 90% of the things you teach others”.
Why do we mistake curiosity for consumption?
However, when it comes to tech, the real risk is mistaking curiosity with consumption of information. What do I mean by this?
Consumption is passive and mindless. When we consume information, such as YouTube videos or Substack articles, we tend to do so because the algorithm effectively lowers the resistance to seek out such information. You might read a nice article describing a complex system and thinking you gained something of value, and you might have indeed if you really focused. But unless you successfully explain to someone like they are 5, you haven’t really learned it.
Real curiosity, however, is deliberate and requires focus. It forces you to admit to yourself what you don’t know, and force you to seek information to satisfy that curiosity.
When out jobs make us stressed, we tend to resort to consumption and escape at the end of the work day. This is understandable.
However, to develop a broad base of knowledge, we need to actively carve out small chunks of time as “deep work” times to let new material soak in.
How to Cultivate Curiosity
There are several little ways to cultivate your own curiosity. These include:
Taking advantage of organizational resources.
Going to the local/university library and look for technical and business resources. Read small units of chapters at a time.
Attending internal seminars and asking the speaker questions afterwards
Attending external conferences and reporting back on what you learned
Asking questions of more senior people like “How did you get to your position”. (In my experience, people enjoy imparting their wisdom, but only if you ask them for it.)
Reach out to people in other domains in the company and ask them what they do.
One thing that actually helped me cultivate real curiosity outside of work is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. BJJ is a sport that humbles even the strongest people because in most cases, success is more about leverage and technique than pure strength. As a white belt you might be learning something new every class but not able to use it right away against more skilled opponents. Rolls feel frustrating. However, by continually showing up, you slowly accumulate knowledge little by little and a few months later, you know more than the new guy who just came in.
I personally BJJ is a perfect analogy of how real insight is developed: not through chasing quick trends, but slowly accumulating hard-won insight that compounds over time. When new people show up, you have a platform to share those insights.
Another useful thing that helps is integrating a mindfulness practice in your daily routine to help regulate your nervous system. Even if it helps a bit, it can open up small windows that all you to develop the curiosity needed to let new material soak in.
How to Teach Others
Once you’ve gathered enough insight, there are small ways you can teach others in corporate environments:
Find ways to offer interesting insight to people during hallway conversations and handoffs at interfaces
Propose a seminar in your organization about a past problem or conference you’ve been in
Create internal “lessons learned” and forum posts on things you think would benefit others in the organization
Find impressionable people, such as early career engineers, and offer to mentor them
You don’t have to go out of your way; just find little moments here and there to add value to others. Run little micro-experiments with people, see what works and doesn’t.
Eventually, these little efforts now can lead to much bigger efforts down the road such as organizing seminars and writing that you and other greatly benefit from. These also lead to visibility that helps during promotion decisions.
In some cases, teaching others may not improve your visibility within the organization. Even in these cases, you still benefit from the preparation that went into knowledge accumulation that can’t be taken away, unlike titles and status. It also helps future proofs your skillset in case the industry can and will take a turn. Trust me, you will want to ensure your skillset is sharp because you never know what will happen.
Conclusion
In my opinion, cultivating curiosity and teaching others around you is more beneficial for both your career and others around you in the longer run. Organizational execution and gaining visibility for promotions is also important, but should not be the sole focus for career success, even when it seems like everyone else is doing it.