Very very easy. Work with people that are much better than you. Difficult to be arrogant when someone can kick your ass, field-wise (sometimes even literally-wise). Plus you get to improve so much faster.
And yes, they're always much people better than you.
This sounds tremendously interesting. I'm currently a C++ developer in (one of the big) EDA companies and I'm interested in working in performance and distributed systems. I need a working VISA though. Also, where do I send my resume?