I had an ego problem back in high school. I would think, "why is everyone around me slacking and incompetent," but I would try to not show this thought on my face or in my tone when speaking. But there certainly were quite some people who would put up their ego in their cheeks and lofty tongues and failing to mask it.
But in college, things changed. What happened was, I competed in ICPC, failed the tryout, then made the tryout but performed mediocre against many of the much stronger contestants. I was humbled. And then I interned at Bytedance, fumbled many tasks as an absolute rookie even though I thought I would ace the internship, then realized how stupid and incompetent I am. That's an exaggeration; my features eventually made it to production, but the impression of 10x Senior Devs juggling all the dashboards and crazy features are here to stay.
Now, whenever I go around, my view becomes more refined: "there are many people who work less than I do, but there are also many people who work more and excel more than I am, around my age, above my age, and even below my age". I see where I fit in the grand scheme of things.
A few peers from high school took off in college with their insane drive and execution. Seeing their grind and accomplishments killed my ego even more. After all, Olympians don't make you feel like a loser until your friend becomes an Olympian. That's an exaggeration and overly negative view, but you get the point.
Imagine back in the ancient days where everything is a village, and you are the most hardworking and talented farmer in your place. Then, it's easy to pick up an ego because your pig is the biggest, unless all of you peasants were starving and can't afford ego. But once you bring your pig to the county fair, your pig is no longer the biggest, some buffalos outshine pigs completely, and there might even be an exotic elephant giant. And once you bring your pig to the city, the Venetian merchant bankers would laugh at you for being a peasant no matter how big your pig was.
You might think you are working the hardest and winning the most in a field, until you zoom out to regional or any higher scale. And there are many adjacent fields too whose prize and participants' drive simply wow you. And eventually, you realize, there are people who don't need to compete in your field at all, because your field is for middle-class families who want to make a big salary, but their field is old money whose kids' monthly allowance shy the salary you earned with the hard work and ingenuity you are so proud of.
Ego exists because the view is limited. You broaden your view a bit, look farther, look around, look above, and you get humbled, and your ego reduce.
Every once in a while, I bump into somebody whose ego and vanity in their tongue simply wow me. Usually, these people are somewhat talented, with great drive, but lack persistence and good work ethics. And I'm guessing they haven't seen better, so they think their pig is the biggest.
On the other hand, for a few of the most talented and accomplished individuals I know, they legitimately are the humblest and no BS people I know. They speak simple languages instead of LinkedIn post. These folks are surrounded by other no BS talent too, which is likely why their ego is lower because they are just the median of friends. Oh and by the way, the voices you see on LinkedIn? They are usually mediocre. They are sharks you see on the surface, but you don't see the blue whale deep down.
The most talented folks I know are insanely proud of their work for sure. And occasionally, we crack a joke at how stupid a PHD or colleague they had to work with, but such complaints are usually overwhelmed in number by amazement over lores of others acing something. Being healthily proud is not looking down, but holistically looking around and up too and realizing where you are in the grand scheme of things. Being big ego is usually just looking down because for whatever reason the view is limited at the moment.
I constantly get humbled, and I know that, backend engineering isn't as sexy or high paying as the crazy machine learning researchers, nor the quant traders. nor the entrepreneurs in software and traditional businesses too. But still, I am very proud of my work, and I can't imagine myself doing other things than backend engineering, at least at the moment.