People who work on the user interface side need to have empathy as a key characteristic. But if you are writing device drivers you don't really need to understand humans so well.

Working for Bud Tribble alongside Bill Atkinson and Burrell Smith Hertzfeld became a primary software architect of the Macintosh Operating System which was considered revolutionary in its use of the graphical user interface (GUI) where Jef Raskin also made contributions. He volunteered for the Open Source Applications Foundation in 2002 and 2003 writing early prototypes of Chandler their information manager. Since leaving Apple he has co-founded three companies: Radius in 1986 General Magic in 1990 and Eazel in 1999.

After buying an Apple II in January 1978 he went to work for Apple Computer from August 1979 until March 1984 where he was a designer for the Macintosh system software. Andy Hertzfeld (born April 6 1953) is an American computer scientist and inventor who was a member of the original Apple Macintosh development team during the 1980s.