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I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

benjiweber.co.uk

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Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#11

Post by jongjong »

To "strive to be a 0.1x engineer" means that whenever you are presented with an option, you intentionally choose the worst option; the one which requires the most work, solves the problem in an inefficient way, doesn't align with the direction of the project and which will require constant maintenance and will need to be rewritten within a year or 2.

10x developers tend to code really slowly, much more slowly than 1x and 0.1x developers (especially when working on the critical parts of the project). What makes them 10x is that once they've written some code, it solves the problem in a near optimal way, it aligns well with the direction of the project (it's easy to build upon), it doesn't require much or any maintenance and it doesn't need to be rewritten for a very long time (e.g. 5 years or more provided that there is no crazy startup pivot on the business side).

This also highlights an important point that not all companies need 10x developers. If the company wants to build a large but straight forward project (a lot of work but without any significant technical challenges), you may not need a 10x developer; you may be better off just hiring a bunch of juniors who can put together a disposable MVP quickly. 10x devs are good when you have a sufficiently complex project; which I would argue are most projects, but not all.

A 2x developer is like a sprinter. A 10x developer is more like a marathon runner.

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#12

Post by fuzzfactor »

jmathai wrote: post #3

FTA: this is the TL;DR and there's a lot of truth in it. Given the cost of maintaining everything we build, it would literally be better for us to do 10% the work and sit around doing nothing for the rest of our time, if we could figure out the right 10% to work on.

True dat.

It works like this in scientific research too, except the worthwhile stuff is only 1%, not the full 10%, so that's another order of magnitude worse X.

So basically if you develop for 100 days, only one of the daily milestones will actually be useful, and it may or may not happen much earlier than when all 100 days have passed. Also you may or may not realize which 1% it is right away either.

But once you've got it, that's the critical 1% that allows you to go forward the very next day.

And the next day is what really counts, otherwise zero progress toward the larger goals.

Even after a large goal has been reached, you might still get the feeling that you wasted a whole lot of days along the line there. Knowing that if you just had, and recognized, the key milestone the very first day of the project, you would be as much as 99 days ahead by comparison.

Now, doing the math, if you work one tenth as much it will take 1000 days to accomplish the same thing instead.

These orders of magnitude are killing me, you must avoid even conceptualizing the possibility that 999 days could be wasted now.

Which is OK, for some things I do that too.

Other things I like to be a lot more than 99 days ahead on.

Always have.

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#13

Post by shepherdjerred »

devmor wrote: post #10
labrador wrote: post #7

When he describes what he does he's describing a 10x engineer. 10x doesn't mean you write 10x more code, it means you deliver 10x more problem solutions

Unfortunately even the most prolific and very successful CEOs and management in our industry often fail to understand this. A couple years ago I was rejected from a 3rd round interview for a very large company that should have known better for the primary reason that my "coding challenge" exercise didn't meet an arbitrary lines of code minimum, despite meeting all of their requirements. And of course we have the rece…

> an arbitrary lines of code minimum, despite meeting all of their requirements.

There's no way this is true right? Why would anyone care about LoC for a coding challenge?

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#14

Post by satvikpendem »

Those here talking about what the author is saying is actually a 10x engineer are missing that he's criticizing the meme of a 10x engineer [0] over an actually 10x more productive engineer.

In a way, it's more of a joke article responding to a joke meme that has some good points over actually being a fully serious article criticizing actual 10x more productive engineers.

[0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/10x-engineer

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#15

Post by curmudgeon22 »

jongjong wrote: post #11

To "strive to be a 0.1x engineer" means that whenever you are presented with an option, you intentionally choose the worst option; the one which requires the most work, solves the problem in an inefficient way, doesn't align with the direction of the project and which will require constant maintenance and will need to be rewritten within a year or 2. 10x developers tend to code really slowly, much more slowly than 1x…

That's not the definition from the article. They talk about knowing when to say no to a project, the concept of identifying value and trying to do valuable things.

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#16

Post by bitL »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #13
devmor wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately even the most prolific and very successful CEOs and management in our industry often fail to understand this. A couple years ago I was rejected from a 3rd round interview for a very large company that should have known better for the primary reason that my "coding challenge" exercise didn't meet an arbitrary lines of code minimum, despite meeting all of their requirements. And of course we have the rece…

> an arbitrary lines of code minimum, despite meeting all of their requirements. There's no way this is true right? Why would anyone care about LoC for a coding challenge?

Some "old school" management styles measure LoC and make hiring/firing decisions based on that. Really.

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#18

Post by tartoran »

bitL wrote: post #16
shepherdjerred wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an arbitrary lines of code minimum, despite meeting all of their requirements. There's no way this is true right? Why would anyone care about LoC for a coding challenge?

Some "old school" management styles measure LoC and make hiring/firing decisions based on that. Really.

Someone should enlighten them that less LOC is good in solving a problem, granted that the code is also more maintenable due to smaller surface area and no bad shortcuts were taken. Yes, it’s hard for management types to get that, perhaps because most of them want the problems entrenchability creates, and that for their own … benefits.

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#19

Post by throwawayoaky »

throwawayoaky wrote: post #17

real talk though how do you make money at a shop that says no? we just gonna sit around with our hands in our robes and nod?

to offer an alterative: write all the code you want and throw it away. Don't get attached to the work of your hands. The code is the water; feel the problem, move towards the value.

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#20

Post by soganess »

satvikpendem wrote: post #14

Those here talking about what the author is saying is actually a 10x engineer are missing that he's criticizing the meme of a 10x engineer [0] over an actually 10x more productive engineer. In a way, it's more of a joke article responding to a joke meme that has some good points over actually being a fully serious article criticizing actual 10x more productive engineers. [0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/10x-enginee…

Software folk taking the 10x thing seriously is akin to PC gamers unironically calling themselves the "PC master race". I have a hard time taking that conversation seriously.
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