Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for
I think the problem is not that one person can't have both of these skills, but that it is hard to play both roles on the same project unless you have a lot of discipline.The engineering mindset and the UX design mindset optimize for different things. Even if you are excellent at both, it helps to have someone else forcing you to get the UX right when you're doing the engineering work, and to make the engineering possible when doing the design work.The people who can do both at the same time don't differ in having both skills -- lots of people have them -- but in having the discipline to optimize for both in alternation.