Yeah, and that makes sense to some extent. We often understand that it's hard to think like someone without our knowledge when writing docs for other developers, and that's more extreme with end users. The hubris is what kills me, though. Empathy is hard, but developers tend to be so arrogant and dismissive, sometimes even disgusted by others not knowing what they know. It's kind of funny: on one hand, many people in tech-- developers, ops, IT, etc.-- have an intense feeling of superiority based on their knowledge, but act like people without that knowledge are imbeciles.

Even worse, it tends to go hand-in-hand with astonishing overconfidence in their understanding of other fields. I've had two other primary careers-- designer, and chef-- and I can't count how many developers have "explained" parts of those fields to me despite knowing I'm a subject matter expert. Like their astonishing intellect and that related Metafilter thread they skimmed makes them authoritative. I get supernova-intensity cringe when I hear other developers shoot off Dunning-Kruger-esque oversimplifications of other fields' genuinely hard problems.

When I hear developers talk about the arrogance of designers, I can't help but laugh... then maybe cry. Many seem genuinely aggrieved that interface designers have more input on the interface design than they do.