Where can I get some of this high-paid, deep, solitary work? These days software engineering is ultra-collaborative, and I doubt anybody would say that doctors/nurses, managers, finance people, or lawyers are doing deep, solitary work.
If someone thinks that paying a small group of people six-figure salaries will shift any type of balance in the world, they need to take a hard look at their assumptions and views.
The article lacks any intellectual rigor.
You can, without talking to a single human being, complete design reviews, claim and fix 1000s of bugs, review PRs, update and ship documentation or releases, etc etc.
Deep Solitary just means "asynchronous", "uninterrupted", and "self-scheduled" in this context.
Reviewing other people’s PR is a collaborative task, fixing bugs "reported by others" is a collaborative work, updating docs and release notes for "other" stakeholder's consumption is collaborative work.
Unless you're building a house deep in the woods for you by you, you're collaborating with other people on different levels.
Let's be honest, introversion is a gradient scale, maybe we've shifted a bit more towards cutting out the office Watercooler talks but everything we do as a species is still highly collaborative.
The definition of collaborative that includes "In person" is just wrong.
The rub is that it's both "deep, solitary" and ultra-collaborative. (Not for all, but for many, for some value of "deep"). That's what makes it such a demanding job, when done right.
Of course many managers don't care about / can't tell between "done right, or at least adequately right" or not, but that's a different topic.
I doubt anybody would say that doctors/nurses, managers, finance people, or lawyers are doing deep, solitary work.
Medical researchers, finance quants, and yes, (certain kinds of) lawyers all regularly do work that is, if not monastically solitary (or as deep as doing a math PhD) -- definitely much more focused than what is realistically possible in most open-plan, junk food driven, "just add the button the customer is crazy for it" development environments.
And in an case, much more focused than what their managers will most likely ever be capable of.
LinkedIn's algorithm overwhelmingly favors conformists, On any typical day 'Look what I have done, Why are people not doing this, To be great like me ...' type posts can get 30,000 likes and an Introvert can't even compete with that.
The issue of conformity does persist in all social media, But LinkedIn has taken it to a whole new level and that a professional is expected to have an LinkedIn account deserves special scrutiny as it's biased.
I believe this is exactly what happens to young large industries that grew way too fast, went into politics and now everyone wants a piece of the pie.
Now, I'm supposed to be some rock star.