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Busting the 10x software engineer myth

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Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#13

Post by EliRivers »

I churn this out every so often:

A 2nd edition of Peopleware summarises it; the 10x programmer is not a myth, but it's comparing the best to the worst; NOT best to median. It's also not about programming specifically; it's simply a common distribution in many metrics of performance.

The rule of thumb Peopleware states is that you can rely on the best outperforming the worst by a factor of 10, and you can rely on the best outperforming the median by a factor of 2.5. This of course indicates that a median developer, middle of the pack, is a 4x developer. Obviously, this is a statistical rule, and if you've got a tiny sample size or some kind of singular outlier or other such; well, we're all adults and we understand how statistics and distributions work.

Peopleware uses Boehn (1981), Sackman (1968), Augustine (1979) and Lawrence (1981) as its sources. [ "Peopleware", DeMarco and Lister, 1987, p45 ]

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#14

Post by anmxxx »

hawk_ wrote: post #6

> Wrote hard-to-understand procedural code to 5000-line files. Did not actively share knowledge with his peers. The author seems to mean prima donna, not a 10x engineer and then goes on to destroy that strawman. Actively sharing knowledge, mentoring etc... and code and architectural simplicity are a given for someone who's 10x productive. Most of the costs are in maintenance not the initial delivery and a 10xer's out…

Indeed! Did he get time to "share knowledge with his peers". Would he have been credited for it? Would his position in the corporation have gotten more secure?

In a U.S. corporation, the answer to all these questions is "no".

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#16

Post by noptd »

The article seems to argue that you shouldn't focus specifically on hiring 10x engineers, not that they don't exist at all.

Bad/clickbait title?

Some people seem really uncomfortable with the idea that individual performance can vary massively from person to person.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#17

Post by tibbar »

So… 10x engineers exist, but they don’t count because their productivity comes from superior knowledge or other factors? This is sort of silly. Just because you can ‘control for a factor’ doesn’t mean that said developer isn’t 10x more productive than everyone else. And providing one example of how this can go wrong says nothing about the general case.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#18

Post by jmchuster »

dijit wrote: post #3

I know "10x engineers" exist; some people are fakes and put forward things that look like they have high impact but are actually a bit shoddy. Some people like to be present and suck up. But some people really do just work hard, smart and have deep passion for what they're doing- and importantly: pride, which makes the quality of the content great too. Some of the best engineers I know "visit" bits of code or infrast…

If we're taking about is just output on a larger macro scale, then yes, hiring enough people will replace 10x engineers.

But some things i think you won't be able to replace --

You won't be able to replace speed on short-term projects. Lots of people means lots of communication overhead, which really kills fast responsive speed. If you value time to answer, you'd prefer a small team of really smart people instead of a large team of average people.

You won't be able to replace the insights. Tasks and knowledge are distributed amongst many individuals in bite-size chunks, so you miss out on insights you only get when someone holds everything in their head at once.

You won't be able to have a small team / small company culture anymore. You have to be large, standardized, bureaucratic, catering to the least common denominator. And then make up for it with volume.

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