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Alan Cooper on the “10x” Programmer

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Re: Alan Cooper on the “10x” Programmer

#21
post #19

After working with ~ 30 odd programmers, I would probably classify myself as a 10x. I think a good chunk of HN'ers are 10x, with imposter syndrome of course. 1. Patience - I have the patience to sit through and fix a bug. Googling it, reading the source ... this is fun for me. 1x programmers give up very often and very soon. They either blame others, feel pity for themselves for not figuring it out or hate the comput…

I'm definitely a 10x programmer, but unfortunately 90% of my time is spent on hackernews, so nothing is gained.

That means you're not a 10x programmer.

Re: Alan Cooper on the “10x” Programmer

#24
post #2

There will always be outliers but it really depends what thing the 10x programmer is making ten times more of. If it's simply lines of code then it can strongly be argued that he's creating 10x more technical debt as well, as one of the stories suggests. I've read that many outlier programmers are on the moderate-to-advanced portion of the autistic scale, at a place where it's actually a superpower in terms of being…

> Are there other fields/jobs where someone can consistently produce 10x more than others simply on their own ability? Sales. Some people can make it rain and generally nobody begrudges paying them well to do so.

Fiction or non-fiction writing. The difference between Terry Brooks and the average wannabe fantasy author is enormous and the difference between him and JRR Tolkien is greater again.

Mathematics. Terence Tao is as far ahead of the average Math professor as they are of the average high school Math teacher.

Law. If you give the average lawyer twenty times as much time and all the research resources of a partner at Skadden Arps the Skadden guy will still come out on top.

Finance. Whether you’re talking VC, PE or Hedge Funds the people at the top are a lot more than ten times as good as the average, never mind the marginal member of their reference class.

All of academia as far as research is concerned. Research impact as measured by citations is a power law. People at top departments routinely get hundreds of times the citations of those at no name ones.

In any human endeavour that isn’t limited by severe bottlenecks in material input you get people who can do much more with much less than others can, and who are capable of doing things that those less skilled simply can’t do.

Re: Alan Cooper on the “10x” Programmer

#25
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My communication, teamwork, and managerial skills are poor and always will be. Could you elaborate on how they're poor? And why you think it won't/can't change? You seem to have expressed yourself very clearly in this post, so at least when it comes to communication, I can't deduce any shortcomings (from this post).

Autism. So text based communication isn't impaired. Also led me to spend a lot of time on the computer so I naturally got better at using them. I send a lot of emails at work and my co-workers will usually try and deal with walkups. Writing is a strong point for me. There's little problems with communication like having the emotional intelligence to tell when your co-workers are having a hard time and when to back of…

Some totally unsolicited advice, but have you considered writing a user manual for yourself and making it available to your management and team members? This a concept a friend/colleague of mine turned me onto and it's been a huge help for everyone involved.

It's basically just a couple of pages with brief descriptions of her communication and work styles, philosophy and approach to conflict and and communication, a list of some modes of interaction which are the most effective/productive when engaging her, and some of her blind spots which may not be apparent.

Aside from equipping coworkers with tools to interact and work with you better, it also gives them permission to engage with you in ways that, while highly effective for you, may be considered rude or socially awkward with other people.

A personal example: I've got an almost non-existent sense of smell, which means that if it's been a particularly hot day or I've been exerting myself I can occasionally get a little ripe smelling without being able to sense it. I am incredibly grateful when someone lets me know if that's the case, but I have to give them that context and permission before they're willing to say "dude yer getting smelly". Generally people wouldn't make that kind of statement for fear of being rude, but once they know that I react well to (and actively solicit) that kind of non-standard interaction it makes everyones lives easier (and significantly less stanky)

Re: Alan Cooper on the “10x” Programmer

#26
I feel like we probably spend too much time playing around with the idea of 10x engineers. It's definitely true there are more effective engineers and less effective engineers, but I really find it funny that there's always a focus on the 10x engineer. Partly because it's impossible ot judge a 10x engineer truly, and partly because it almost always is accompanied by a story about how the 10x engineer only works on one specific type of problem, almost never in a way that adds value to a customer. What you really often have is a 0.95x engineering team - where one engineer has the 10x reputation and the team as a whole is performing 0.95x. Meanwhile the 3x team contains a number of '10x' engineers operating at 4x and making sure everyone else is the team is around the same level as them.

What I hope we can all agree on is that in every day life we're a long way past the point where a single engineer is going to make or break your company by being 10x. It's far more important to be making sure that a team of 10 is working at 3x or a team of 100 is working at 1.2x.

Re: Alan Cooper on the “10x” Programmer

#27
I think the people looking hard for 10x engineers are poor team builders. The thing is a team of two good engineers can be a much more potent combination than one 10x arrogant prick who cant communicate or work in a team. Good engineers are still rare but they more frequently found than 10x engineers.

Re: Alan Cooper on the “10x” Programmer

#28

All I can say is, it’s been my subjective experience that competence and productivity are really variable. Some people at my company can produce beautiful, working, end to end solutions for complex problems in the time it takes others to grind out trivial maintenance tickets. Everyone knows who they are. Programmers are not basically all the same, and it’s worth thinking about the nature of the differences if you wan…

Agreed. I was formulating it as this (at a previous job, obviously)

There are 4 "top engineers." All 4 of these top engineers would identify each other as such.

There are 4 "D tier engineers." You'd rather have any ONE of the "top engineers" than ALL the "D tier" engineers.

These D-Tier engineers usually end up "managing" a rote manual process (e.g. calling a script sending emails in batches manually), when any "top tier" engineer would have written an automatic scripted solution that runs periodically, batches on an intelligent interval, logs its output, and automatically alarms if its results are anomalous (and done so in a week and moved on to a new project).

Re: Alan Cooper on the “10x” Programmer

#29
post #26

I feel like we probably spend too much time playing around with the idea of 10x engineers. It's definitely true there are more effective engineers and less effective engineers, but I really find it funny that there's always a focus on the 10x engineer. Partly because it's impossible ot judge a 10x engineer truly, and partly because it almost always is accompanied by a story about how the 10x engineer only works on on…

I think the focus is just pure jealousy just the same way people are jealous of those who are 10x income earners.

There are 10x engineers out there who not only product great work, but solid work that doesn't need support, they test, they document. They might not be a pleasure to work with for most because their thinking level is completely different and they don't subscribe to modern software rituals. They focus on what it takes to get it done.

I can't agree that we are way past the point where a single engineer can't make or break the company being a 10x. Sure for most enterprises, but startups and small companies those are still valuable if they can get one.

Re: Alan Cooper on the “10x” Programmer

#30
post #11
post #2

There will always be outliers but it really depends what thing the 10x programmer is making ten times more of. If it's simply lines of code then it can strongly be argued that he's creating 10x more technical debt as well, as one of the stories suggests. I've read that many outlier programmers are on the moderate-to-advanced portion of the autistic scale, at a place where it's actually a superpower in terms of being…

One other thing, software has the benefit that product development occurs in a simulation. There's a freedom that comes with that, we're unbound by physics - layer upon layer of abstraction make it a lost concern. It feeds into itself, growing in power at a rate proportional to its surface. Until that is, it collapses under its own weight. When that happens is a matter of structure, and the extent to which the develo…

You've described how I feel about this in such a succinct yet expressive way. I find it hard to communicate to ${NON_PROGRAMMERS} the difference between highly skilled software folks, average skilled, and the huge bulk of copy+paste wannabe's.
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