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- The Hero Trap: How Network Engineering Myths Undermine Scale, Velocity, and Sanity
The Hero Trap: How Network Engineering Myths Undermine Scale, Velocity, and Sanity
How dependence on network heroes leads to technical debt and operational and business risks
Leonardo Furtado
October 25, 2025
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So, Is Your Organization Operating and Praising Under Heroics Culture? It's Time To Change!
In the world of network engineering, heroism is often glorified; engineers who “save the day” during outages are praised for their quick thinking and in-depth institutional knowledge.
However, behind every heroic recovery lies a broken system: undocumented configurations, tribal knowledge silos, and a culture that prioritizes reaction over resilience. And that, my friend, is a huge problem.
I chose to write and publish about this topic because I've been involved in various industries and have dealt with a wide range of complexities over time. I've seen many different work cultures and the value propositions they promote; I've been there, done that.
On both sides, I've seen relationships fail. For businesses, it means constant downtime, operational struggles, technical debt, and unhappy customers. Meanwhile, engineers can only keep up with heroics for so long before they start to burn out. As their work-life balance deteriorates, they'll regret missing out on important moments that can't be recaptured.
Based on my extensive background and experience, I have a clear understanding of what works and what doesn't, having been both a hero and a challenger. I'm confident that this post reflects the reality of many organizations, and the ideas I present here for overcoming these challenges are common in hyperscale companies.
Once you've worked for one of these giants, you realize there's no going back: the lessons you learn stay with you, especially when it comes to this mindset I'll be sharing. Once you've mastered operating this way, it's tough to accept working for organizations where tech debt, operational toil, and tribal knowledge drive everything you do.
This article dismantles the myth of the network hero, exploring how it undermines availability, velocity, and team well-being. Through real-world examples and lessons from high-scale operations, we argue for a shift toward systemic engineering practices that foster sustainability, reliability, and scale, without burning out the people who build and operate our networks.
So, enjoy the ride and let your organization learn from it.
Let's get into it.