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Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

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Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#461

Post by ornornor »

bargl wrote: post #194
noad wrote: post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

Have you looked into Consulting? I'm mid 30s and I see consultants way older bringing in cash by jumping in on projects that are using a slightly older stack (not all the time older) and crushing it. Seriously there is work out there for consultants and they can do awesome stuff. I've even seen consultants at startups. Good luck!

Consultent work can be soul crushing though. Shitty relics, toxic client...

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#462

Post by Sosh101 »

0xy wrote: post #294
bearjaws wrote: post #11

I hate the notion of "10x developer". It focuses on hiring the best person, rather than firing individuals who undermine the team. The reality is, there are some 1x developers, and some .5x developers. Even worse though are the -1x developers. So many times I see a corporate culture of firing = bad, so lets just try to find someone who is a "10x", when really all you need is to remove the people who cause more work f…

The majority of developers are 0.1x or worse. It's Price's law. For every passionate and productive developer, there are 10 more who coast and do the bare minimum to not be fired. This has been true in every single organization I've been part of.

If they are the majority, then surely they are the definition of 1x?

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#463

Post by maps7 »

arvinsim wrote: post #292
maps7 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been programming your whole life? Have you ever been tempted to move into architect role?

When you mean architect role, do you mean being a consultant?

I mean any architect role really - just because OP mentioned it

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#464

Post by maps7 »

neogodless wrote: post #277
maps7 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been programming your whole life? Have you ever been tempted to move into architect role?

My whole life? Interesting question... since I was 7, so pretty much yes! (And since before I dropped out of college, I've been doing this professionally, except for one summer early on where I drove a truck around delivering hoagies to businesses!) And certainly. A lot of projects were small enough where I did everything from set up the hosting environment and domain names, build the database, write the application…

> You can only stand to do things that you know won't turn out well at someone else's direction, only to soon watch them turn out poorly... so many times before you start to believe in yourself a little.

I know that feeling!

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#465

Post by jonfw »

falcolas wrote: post #434
jonfw wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salary isn't a function of time- it's a function of perceived value and leverage.

The only way your salary won’t go up on a yearly basis is if you’re constantly on the road to being fired. Cost of living increases (2%), as well as small yearly increases to keep you motivated and content (1-2%), are just a fact of life when working for a company. The only part that’s tied to your perceived value and leverage are bonuses or new job salaries (and most of the time those are tied to your previous salar…

IBM, for example, doesn't do yearly raises- you either have to go out of your way to negotiate (i.e. threaten to leave) or you have to apply to go to the next band. I've also seen this at Cisco, and I've heard that Amazon does this as well.

In fact- at Amazon I've heard the opposite of what you're claiming (I've heard this sort of culture referred to as 'up or out')- after a few years you've exhausted your signing incentives (primarily stock options that vest over those few years) and if you stay in the same role for a long time, your total comp will actually decrease

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#466

Post by cvlasdkv »

nomel wrote: post #403
war1025 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Congratulations, you are now 3-10x developer. Congratulations. You are still getting paid the same. Boosts in productivity need to come with boosts in pay, otherwise the logical thing to do is to scale back your effort to a point where the amount you get done matches the amount you get paid for.

I’ve never heard of a company that will offer to pay you more if you promise to be more productive in the future. What industry are you in? All of my raises and promotions came from results that exceeded expectations.

switching jobs is a promise of productivity. giving an individual company more productivity for free is bullshit -- get your comp adjusted as frequently as possible.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#467

Post by arduinomancer »

JoshuaDavid wrote: post #435
A21z wrote: post #363

"Rule 11: Which database technology to choose: Choose SQL when you need to do ad hoc queries and/or you need support for ACID and transactions. Otherwise choose no-SQL" I think it should be the contrary: SQL by default, no-SQL if you have a specific need and know what you are doing.

I feel like the unstated caveat is "there will almost always come a time when you need to do ad hoc queries, and there will almost always come a time when you need transactions or the equivalent." Which translates to "use sql unless you are sure your don't and won't need to do ad hoc queries or transactions." Which... seems correct.

From what I've seen a lot of people solve needing ad-hoc queries with NoSQL by exporting everything to a data warehouse.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#468

Post by sixstringtheory »

cambalache wrote: post #456
sixstringtheory wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me sum up how I saw it go... -you can get more done if you avoid addictive black holes for attention --if they don't want you playing around they should pay you more than the salary you agreed to work for ---yup, still getting paid the same. company is getting theirs, go get yours (I think this reply was actually sarcastic) ----how do you live with yourself -----if you have integrity you're dumb ------most people…

If you think checking reddit or HN at work is a cardinal sin, be my guest and run yourself to the ground doing 80 hours a week with no respite, ignoring that many many studies place peak cognitive performance at 4 hours a day at best,be a "10x" engineer and get promoted.Unless you are laid off, but that rarely happens so dont worry.

You're still pushing this false dichotomy that you can either surf social media or beat yourself to death. You're arguing against a straw man.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#469

Post by illumin8 »

cellularmitosis wrote: post #23

"To replace out MediaWiki with a Java-based alternative (XWiki) ended up taking a total fo 24 dev-years over 4+ calendar years for the team, not counting the interruptions to pretty much every other team at Amazon as their pages were getting constantly migrated and un-migrated" I would love to hear more about this. I'm guessing that's a cost of at least $4M? How was this approved? How did they allow it to continue fo…

That's the famous w.amazon.com internal wiki that is basically the intranet portal for all of Amazon. I worked at AWS from 2016-2019 as a principal engineer. They were trying to deprecate w.amazon.com for the entire 3+ years I worked there, and were still trying when I left in early 2019.

I can tell you that Amazon is pretty great in most ways, but they have a lot of really old school tools. For example, they still use majordomo to manage hundreds of thousands of email lists. They've customized and extended it in so many ways that it probably looks nothing like open source majordomo, but at it's core, it's still majordomo. They just wrapped 1990s majordomo CLI tool with a 1990s static HTML page that authenticates you with oauth and lets you create and manage email distribution lists.

So many tools at Amazon are like that. But they actually function amazingly well once you adapt to their 1990s->early 2000s quirks.

One comment I'll make is this: every environment will have preferred "paved" roads - use X language/toolchain and Y relational database, Z cloud/metal provider. Ultimately these details, other than X and a subset of Y, shouldn't matter if you build the right abstractions. And by "the right abstractions" I mean you should just be able to declare something like this: relational_database: mydb: size: 100GB readers: - auditservice readwriters: - application1 - application2

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#470

Post by sufyanadam »

Aeolun wrote: post #439
eastbayjake wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear: XP and Kanban are different things. XP has prescribed engineering practices, most forcefully that development should be done via pair programming for continuous code review. Kanban prescribes no engineering practices and could be used in lots of non-engineering contexts (e.g., your marketing team could take all of their tasks, put them in a prioritized backlog, then track the progression of those tasks a…

> You have to work a late night the day before sprint release? You were in the room when the team agreed to the body of work that would be committed for delivery in this sprint. Fuck that. The fact that my estimate does not work out as expected should not be a reason to work late nights just to get it done. That’s exactly the death march that you were saying Scrum is not.

+1 A million times on this, you nailed it.
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