Abstraction arises naturally while searching for a solution

Great engineers solve problems pragmatically through abstraction. Making every piece of information concrete in order to understand it costs too much in communication and wastes time. So abstraction is not a skill to learn in advance but a tool that is naturally demanded in the course of finding a solution.

Related: Learning works best when you start from a problem, not from theory — just as depth follows the demands of the problem, abstraction arises from the needs of the solving process.