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0/9 Good engineering looks trivial. Some thoughts in this thread 
1/ If your presentation isn’t easily comprehensible by a reasonably smart (but not necessarily experienced) colleague, you can probably do better. (Hint: All of your colleagues are reasonably smart)
2/ If your design isn’t easily understood by an engineer with basic knowledge of your domain, you can probably do better.
3/ If your code is too difficult to read and its correctness is not obvious to a random teammate, you can probably do better.
4/ If you do your non-trivial work well, the result should look almost trivial.
5/ Note: “Can do better” != “Should do better”. Priorities matter. Invest your time and energy where it matters.
6/ The other side of the equation: If you don’t understand what a presentation was about, see a design and feel that it's beyond the capacity of your brain, look at code and think you need a Ph.D. to understand why it does what it should do, most likely it’s not you.
7/ Moreover, you can help make these better, by stating what is not clear, asking basic questions, challenging the building blocks, the angle from which the problem is viewed, the analogies made, etc. If you don't understand it easily, it can be improved.
8/ Don’t be reluctant to ask the most basic questions. You’ll be surprised how many times such questions reveal weaknesses and flaws, help to clarify concepts, etc.
9/9 Managers/Leaders: you want to create a culture that encourages simple questions. Simple questions many times challenge the fundamentals. (Try a conversation about any topic with a 4 years-old child, you'll be humbled by the number of gaps you'll find in your knowledge)
