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10x (engineer, context) pairs

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Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#111

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

tjs8rj wrote: post #74

I have no idea why this is so contentious in the engineering discipline like it’s some unique question. When you were in school, weren’t their students just far more capable than others? When you look at sports, aren’t there just players far more capable than everyone else (any pro player vs any non pro)? When you look at art, aren’t there just artists so much better than others (professional artists vs a hobbyist)?…

i think i was a 10x engineer at my last job, but the bar was much lower. now I'm just average. it's all relative

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#112

Post by deltaonefour »

deltaonefour wrote: post #95
jollybean wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even mean domain knowledge so much as an intimacy with the stack, the tools ... and not even so much 'knowledge' but 'know-how'. I work with a company that sells IP in the form of patents, but it's only 1/2 the value. You have to know how to use the components, and the resulting data and finesse it.

That's what domain knowledge is. 'Know how.' The engineers who are a class above the ones who rely on 'domain knowledge' aren't limited by the stack or the tools. They can switch to a different stack and the tools aren't so important to them. For example I move faster on servers with ssh and tmux. I can do multiple things and configure stuff and test things really quickly with these tools. A 10x engineer doesn't have…

I would even go further to say because they are so efficient they lack the practice needed to get fast with tooling. Other engineers take a more brute force approach and thus as a result they get really familiar with the tools. 10x people don't have the opportunity to practice because they find the solution on their first try.

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#113

Post by mbrodersen »

lostdog wrote: post #4

Yeah, there are plenty of fake 10x engineers out there, or temporary 10x-ers who are only doing well because of their working environment. But I have worked with a few people who were clear 10x engineers. Everything they worked on they did better and faster and cleaner. They could often solve problems that other skilled people couldn't even get started on. Yes, they usually picked important and impactful things to wo…

Yep my experience as well. I have worked with 10x developers that will quickly outperform any other developers in any area they start working on. I worked with a 10x that started with zero knowledge on a specific programming language and it’s ecosystem and in a few months delivered a well written, easy to maintain large business applications that a whole team of more experienced developers (in that language/ecosystem) had failed to deliver. Developing software is like any other activity. Some people simply are more talented than others. People who refuse to acknowledge this needs to explain why software development is the only activity where talent doesn’t matter. They can’t.

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#114

Post by mbrodersen »

khazhoux wrote: post #37

I contend that the only reason their existence is debated or controversial, is because the concept hurts the pride of those who like to think of themselves as best-of-the-best engineers, but are afraid they're really not. I've worked with 10x engineers maybe 2-3 times in 20 years. One single-handedly wrote 85% of and another wrote most of the internal libraries at . They would regularly take tasks that most people wo…

You are 100% correct. Talent matters in any activity. Including software development. Pretending that software developers is the one exception to this rule is just silly. But it does protect the ego of insecure developers.

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#116

Post by a_square_peg »

Software industry would really benefit once we grow out of discussing this 10x notion - it's the same level of juvenile (high-school/undergrad) discussion as whether geniuses and gifted people really exist (they do) but in professional settings, it matters very little.

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#117

Post by sinenomine »

deltaonefour wrote: post #12

I've talked to some of these people in depth and analyzed them. The difference with these people is incredible lack of brain fog. Everything is utterly clear for them. If you're a 10xer then this post characterizes the difference between you and others. It's not that other people are stupider, but there's a sort of brain fog that prevents people from seeing a solution. We sort of have to wander through a fog and look…

I think there is a deeper truth behind this observation. At least we know that smarter people often have larger brains, better control of alpha-rhythm, better fronto-parietal gamma synchronization, longer dendrites. It is plausible to hypothesize that all these differences add up to larger representational capacity and better separation of concept representations, which subjectively could feel like less brain fog while performing demanding mental tasks.

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#118

Post by deltaonefour »

sinenomine wrote: post #117
deltaonefour wrote: post #12

I've talked to some of these people in depth and analyzed them. The difference with these people is incredible lack of brain fog. Everything is utterly clear for them. If you're a 10xer then this post characterizes the difference between you and others. It's not that other people are stupider, but there's a sort of brain fog that prevents people from seeing a solution. We sort of have to wander through a fog and look…

I think there is a deeper truth behind this observation. At least we know that smarter people often have larger brains, better control of alpha-rhythm, better fronto-parietal gamma synchronization, longer dendrites. It is plausible to hypothesize that all these differences add up to larger representational capacity and better separation of concept representations, which subjectively could feel like less brain fog whi…

Anecdotally what I have found is 10xers or high IQ people tend to find the solution that makes utter and complete sense. The simplest most efficient solution is the one they come up with.

The thing that they miss is the novel solution. The WTF solution that's so left field it changes fundamental understanding of everything. It is even rarer to find these types of people. I believe the "creativity" skill is highly independent of "lack of brain fog" so often times the creative people aren't noticeably more intelligent because they have brain fog and aren't as sharp as the classically intelligent person.

They say that Einstein once called his secretary to ask about his address because forgot where he lived.

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#119

Post by lostdog »

agumonkey wrote: post #21
lostdog wrote: post #4

Yeah, there are plenty of fake 10x engineers out there, or temporary 10x-ers who are only doing well because of their working environment. But I have worked with a few people who were clear 10x engineers. Everything they worked on they did better and faster and cleaner. They could often solve problems that other skilled people couldn't even get started on. Yes, they usually picked important and impactful things to wo…

let's make the twitch stream their workflows :)

You joke, but I'd love to pair with my current local 10x-er. It will be like bringing my honda civic to the grand prix, but it should be educational at least.

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#120

Post by drBonkers »

mmmm2 wrote: post #73
drBonkers wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you build this raw, generically-applicable problem solving skill? Everything I come across ends up being frameworks for probables specific to a discipline.

I think it can come from natural curiosity, strong fundamentals, and experience. Search for problems that don't have canned answers and try to solve them. I think anyone can improve if they're willing to put in the time, though of course natural ability does help. Think about learning to write a compiler for a programming language. You'd have to learn: - Computer architecture - Assembly language - Caching - Recursion…

These are great example exercises, thank you for sharing them.

I think they may get at the heart of what I was trying to say though: while these clearly would make one better at solving software engineering problems, I'm not certain they would improve one's raw, general problem solving ability in an orthogonal discipline.

Some (likely imperfect) examples are:

- solving salary negotiation of a job/contract offer

- solving socio-political organizational problems in a company

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