Why don't companies pay 50x engineers 50x? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why don't companies pay 50x engineers 50x?

#61

Post by bb88 » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 9:33 AM UTC

knowtheworld wrote: post #40

bb88 wrote: post #26

In the contract world, it's a lot easier. Your value is 10% of the worth of the total value you're creating or somewhere between $100 to $200/hr, maybe even as high as $400/hr for rare skills.

But the problem is the software industry is hype complex. Thus is almost impossible to measure your real revenue contribution.

Either you're in the value stream making (or saving) money for your company or you're someone that was added because some manager said they needed headcount. If you can't tell which you are, then neither can HR or upper management.

Re: Why don't companies pay 50x engineers 50x?

#62

Post by knipster » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 11:36 AM UTC

The author suggest that star athletes are paid for their exceptional athletic ability.

Star athletes are paid for their ability to fill a stadium and or sell advertising/media rights. Part of their value is their celebrity and name/likeness. They are more equivocal to entertainers in this context. Of course, ability matters, because winning teams are celebrated!

Software developers do not bring this value to their organizations.

Re: Why don't companies pay 50x engineers 50x?

#63

Post by m463 » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 1:31 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #60

m463 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, there are some people who are brilliant and effective. I have known a handful of these folks, which probably matches the statistics. You probably don't sit with them in the lunchroom, but folks like Steve Jobs might.

> Come on, there are some people who are brilliant and effective. Sure, but can I replace 50 average engineers with one of them, and get the same output? Never.

That's not how it works.

You and a bunch of your friends could probably do more code reviews, but could you all give a better presentation than steve jobs?

Re: Why don't companies pay 50x engineers 50x?

#64

Post by PopGreene » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

> If you’re a software engineer, you would probably agree with what Steve Jobs said.

No. I don't. I do believe that Jobs was being hyperbolic.

This article would seem to imply that most managers are 0.1X:

> In fact, you can see how hard it is to evaluate a software engineer from the process of big tech companies. The most common technical interview process for programmers is to ask them to solve very challenging programming questions.

Your engineers are already solving very challenging programming problems. If you can't work with that, you shouldn't be in management. Part of your job is to evaluate skills and compensate accordingly. If you can't manage that, you are a 0.1X manager.

Re: Why don't companies pay 50x engineers 50x?

#65

Post by crazygringo » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

Trasmatta wrote: post #39

crazygringo wrote: post #12

There's another reason, too -- which is that a "50x engineer" will very rarely be 50x on most development tasks. Your 50x engineer may be able to build a highly performant and complex algorithm by themselves, truly in a week where other engineers might take a year. But 99% of programming isn't that. It's CRUD apps and configuration files and debugging browser quirks and hunting down race conditions etc. Your "50x eng…

In my mind and experience, a "10x engineer" (not sure I'm ready for the "50x" term) gets (or should get) that distinction because they write high quality, fault tolerant, secure, performant, well documented code, AND they empower their teammates. It usually has very little to do with the speed in which they accomplish all of that, which I think is why management has a hard time identifying who they are. They may thin…

I appreciate what you're saying... but I don't think that's the generally accepted meaning of 10x. You're just describing a good, responsible, effective programmer. Skills like good documentation or secure code are things anyone can learn from training and experience. And the qualities you're describing are also very much a function of what the company requires/expects/incentivizes, rather than what any individual chooses to do.

People generally reserve "10x engineer" who really do have the intellectual capacity and stamina to crank out 10x the amount of code of the same quality as a median engineer.

I think it's important not to confuse the two.

Re: Why don't companies pay 50x engineers 50x?

#66

Post by knowtheworld » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #58

crazygringo wrote: post #12

There's another reason, too -- which is that a "50x engineer" will very rarely be 50x on most development tasks. Your 50x engineer may be able to build a highly performant and complex algorithm by themselves, truly in a week where other engineers might take a year. But 99% of programming isn't that. It's CRUD apps and configuration files and debugging browser quirks and hunting down race conditions etc. Your "50x eng…

There’s a bit of Amdahls law here: If I’m “10x engineer” but just 10% of the day, that means I’m really a 1.1x engineer. And it doesn’t matter (much) whether I’m a 50x or 100x engineer in that 10% the max speedup is limited by the “1x” part.

I agree that 10 engineers can’t do everything 10x. Even 10x engineers can only let 10% of the code 10x faster, it might have a deciding impact on the end result. if a software product is all written by 10x engineers, it might turn out to be 2x as fast as the one done by average engineers.

And in software optimization, speeding up a program 2x usually requires 10x more resources. This is why I think the 10x concept still makes sense here.

Re: Why don't companies pay 50x engineers 50x?

#67

Post by Trasmatta » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #65

Trasmatta wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mind and experience, a "10x engineer" (not sure I'm ready for the "50x" term) gets (or should get) that distinction because they write high quality, fault tolerant, secure, performant, well documented code, AND they empower their teammates. It usually has very little to do with the speed in which they accomplish all of that, which I think is why management has a hard time identifying who they are. They may thin…

I appreciate what you're saying... but I don't think that's the generally accepted meaning of 10x. You're just describing a good, responsible, effective programmer. Skills like good documentation or secure code are things anyone can learn from training and experience. And the qualities you're describing are also very much a function of what the company requires/expects/incentivizes, rather than what any individual ch…

I'm pretty dubious about the idea that this type of engineer actually exists.

Re: Why don't companies pay 50x engineers 50x?

#68

Post by knowtheworld » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

knipster wrote: post #62

The author suggest that star athletes are paid for their exceptional athletic ability. Star athletes are paid for their ability to fill a stadium and or sell advertising/media rights. Part of their value is their celebrity and name/likeness. They are more equivocal to entertainers in this context. Of course, ability matters, because winning teams are celebrated! Software developers do not bring this value to their or…

I would argue that making efficient and reliable software products is a very crucial factor for a software company to bring more revenue. It’s just not as straightforward to measure this.

Re: Why don't companies pay 50x engineers 50x?

#69

Post by knowtheworld » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

pictur wrote: post #57

What is meant by 10x software engineer? good computer science knowledge? Advanced experience in any language? this is very relative.

There is not a straightforward way to measure it. It’s highly domain dependent. There are some general directions though. Deep understanding of domain knowledge, clear logics, excellent programming ability, and ability to frame a problem in the right way and break it to smaller problems. It’s vague I know, that’s why it’s not trivial to see it though.

Another way to view this is that programming sometimes is like solving a math problem. A top-tier mathematician can solve a difficult math problem 100x faster than an average person. 100x is even a bit understatement because most people can’t even come up with any solution given long enough time. For sure, programming is not solving math problems, but they have some similarities. But this is a way to conceptualize it.

Re: Why don't companies pay 50x engineers 50x?

#70

Post by knowtheworld » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

phroobster wrote: post #53

Lots of pushback in this thread against the idea of 10x, 50x, etc. engineers. If we’re just measuring performance relative to the average software developer then I don’t see why they wouldn’t exist. I’ve met developers who solve problems that the average developer would simply never solve no matter how much time they threw at it. You could make the argument that they are “infinityx” engineers, as silly as that might…

I do feel that. Another way to view this is that programming sometimes is like solving a math problem. A top-tier mathematician can solve a difficult math problem 100x faster than an average person. 100x is even a bit understatement because most people can’t even come up with any solution given long enough time. For sure, programming is not solving math problems, but they have some similarities. But this is a way to conceptualize it.