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Ask HN: How is your company training you to become a better developer/engineer?

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Re: Ask HN: How is your company training you to become a better developer/engineer?

#81

Post by tartoran »

cies wrote: post #71
zmxz wrote: post #65

You can't "create" 10x engineer. You either have work ethic or you don't. If you have the work ethic, if you're disciplined, if you genuinely enjoy programming and the feature/software you work on - then you have the capacity to be better than engineers who enter this line of work purely and only for the money. That's what makes the difference. And no company can make you like the software you're making, to be discip…

While I agree with all you said, I hold the belief that intelligence is mostly determined by birth (probably genes). So that may be a limiting factor even when your work ethic is high.

But there are plenty with average inteligence with good work ethic and good productivity. I think work ethic is something to be cultivated individually and has mostly no bearing in genetics.

Re: Ask HN: How is your company training you to become a better developer/engineer?

#82

Post by noufalibrahim »

bjornsing wrote: post #46
zkirill wrote: post #28

I always thought the term "10x engineer" was only used in job ads. Nobody I know refers to themselves (or even thinks of themselves) as a "?x engineer", unless it's for marketing purposes in which case you might as well put 100x for good measure. The "best" engineer in the world would probably tell you that "the only thing that they know is that they know nothing". They may also say that the most valuable thing that…

I don’t mind calling myself a 10x engineer, but it’s of course better when others do so. ;) Honestly I’m quite tired of this false humility norm. Seems to me it’s mostly about redistributing the fruits of common labors from those that focus on the craft and try to improve their productivity, towards the socially focused “humility experts”. I much prefer working with cocky 10x engineers rather than these humility poli…

I think it's a marketing thing. I'd call myself that if i were attending a job interview perhaps and trying to sell myself.

I wouldn't call myself that if I were speaking to a junior developer and helping him with something that's difficult enough to sap his confidence.

Re: Ask HN: How is your company training you to become a better developer/engineer?

#83

Post by throwaway0147 »

bjornsing wrote: post #46
zkirill wrote: post #28

I always thought the term "10x engineer" was only used in job ads. Nobody I know refers to themselves (or even thinks of themselves) as a "?x engineer", unless it's for marketing purposes in which case you might as well put 100x for good measure. The "best" engineer in the world would probably tell you that "the only thing that they know is that they know nothing". They may also say that the most valuable thing that…

I don’t mind calling myself a 10x engineer, but it’s of course better when others do so. ;) Honestly I’m quite tired of this false humility norm. Seems to me it’s mostly about redistributing the fruits of common labors from those that focus on the craft and try to improve their productivity, towards the socially focused “humility experts”. I much prefer working with cocky 10x engineers rather than these humility poli…

The problem in my experience is that cocky attitudes have a tendency to spread and it creates a really difficult work environment.

You also have to take the Dunning-Kruger effect into account, where most developers aren't able to evaluate themselves correctly. In our work we have a tendency to view thing as "right" and "wrong". I often find people with a few years of experience to be the worst. They have enough experience to recognise that they are more knowledgable than juniors, but lack the overall picture.

Some even come out of studies this way, because they are used to being the smartest in their class and have built up their egos. "Why is the old shitty code written this way, they must have been stupid? We need to rewrite it in the framework I read about in the blog last week". Only experience will teach them that things are not that simple. If they are not exposed to the right working environments in their first jobs, they will spread this negativity for years until they (hopefully) grow as persons.

Pro tip: If something looks unnecessarily complex, there may actually be a reason for it. In the case where you need to rewrite/refactor working stable code, don't try to negatively push down others to enhance your own feeling of superiority. Keep the arguments as objective as possible. If you have tracked the code to specific individuals, at least talk to them in private first to get their input instead of assuming you know best.

Re: Ask HN: How is your company training you to become a better developer/engineer?

#84

Post by tartoran »

jl2718 wrote: post #42
zkirill wrote: post #28

I always thought the term "10x engineer" was only used in job ads. Nobody I know refers to themselves (or even thinks of themselves) as a "?x engineer", unless it's for marketing purposes in which case you might as well put 100x for good measure. The "best" engineer in the world would probably tell you that "the only thing that they know is that they know nothing". They may also say that the most valuable thing that…

I am a 10x engineer. I have the awesome capability to show you that a project is going to cost 10x the time/budget, and why you don’t need it, and should probably focus on the obvious 1x idea.

But if you claim to be a 10x you’d be able to finish their 1x idea in 1/10th of the time wouldn’t you?

Re: Ask HN: How is your company training you to become a better developer/engineer?

#85

Post by CoastalCoder »

jstx1 wrote: post #77
zmxz wrote: post #65

You can't "create" 10x engineer. You either have work ethic or you don't. If you have the work ethic, if you're disciplined, if you genuinely enjoy programming and the feature/software you work on - then you have the capacity to be better than engineers who enter this line of work purely and only for the money. That's what makes the difference. And no company can make you like the software you're making, to be discip…

As someone with ADHD, it’s kind of sad that I’ll hit some career ceiling because I can’t get myself to put in the work.

I might have something that might help. (I'm really not sure, but no harm in mentioning it.)

I'm kind of in the same boat. I don't really like the open-source software I'm paid to develop. Some combination of that, my ADD, and maybe burnout, make it really hard to plug away at developing that software. I have no doubt the ennui seriously dings my productivity.

Then a few weekends ago, I started working with some open-source software that's adjacent to my day job. I get to work at my own pace, focus on the parts that interest me, etc. I'm really enjoying myself.

I see two possible benefits to this weekend activity:

(1) It's helping me to enjoy programming again.

(2) If I'm really lucky, the knowledge and/or software I'm developing will become relevant to my day job. I think that would make my day job a lot more fun.

Re: Ask HN: How is your company training you to become a better developer/engineer?

#86

Post by Existenceblinks »

Most of them won't. In 2022-2023, that's not going to happen. 2011-2015 was a good time companies were helping workforce grow together by willing to train engineers who are eager to learn.

Today? You need 5 years of specific tools to get a job. 10 years of total experience. There are exceptions as always..

Re: Ask HN: How is your company training you to become a better developer/engineer?

#87

Post by joxel »

throwaway0147 wrote: post #83
bjornsing wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t mind calling myself a 10x engineer, but it’s of course better when others do so. ;) Honestly I’m quite tired of this false humility norm. Seems to me it’s mostly about redistributing the fruits of common labors from those that focus on the craft and try to improve their productivity, towards the socially focused “humility experts”. I much prefer working with cocky 10x engineers rather than these humility poli…

The problem in my experience is that cocky attitudes have a tendency to spread and it creates a really difficult work environment. You also have to take the Dunning-Kruger effect into account, where most developers aren't able to evaluate themselves correctly. In our work we have a tendency to view thing as "right" and "wrong". I often find people with a few years of experience to be the worst. They have enough exper…

Thanks for this. There’s too much of me in this than I would like..

Re: Ask HN: How is your company training you to become a better developer/engineer?

#88

Post by atonse »

As a developer/business owner who cares deeply about our staff’s long term growth, I started reading this thread looking for ideas we could use.

Right now our strategy is some combination of mentoring/pairing time, teaching concepts and how to apply them, encouraging devs to take ownership of their work and rewarding them by having them present their work to clients.

Is it working? Staff seems generally happy with that way of doing things but we aren’t measuring it.

Will continue to look for ideas here.

Re: Ask HN: How is your company training you to become a better developer/engineer?

#89

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

bjornsing wrote: post #46
zkirill wrote: post #28

I always thought the term "10x engineer" was only used in job ads. Nobody I know refers to themselves (or even thinks of themselves) as a "?x engineer", unless it's for marketing purposes in which case you might as well put 100x for good measure. The "best" engineer in the world would probably tell you that "the only thing that they know is that they know nothing". They may also say that the most valuable thing that…

I don’t mind calling myself a 10x engineer, but it’s of course better when others do so. ;) Honestly I’m quite tired of this false humility norm. Seems to me it’s mostly about redistributing the fruits of common labors from those that focus on the craft and try to improve their productivity, towards the socially focused “humility experts”. I much prefer working with cocky 10x engineers rather than these humility poli…

I agree with this, one of the things I absolutely hate seeing (on this site, no less) is the whole "imposter syndrome". It's basically humble bragging.

This is my strength and I'm absolutely better at it than most. There's lots of things I'm completely inadequate at, this aint one of 'em.

Re: Ask HN: How is your company training you to become a better developer/engineer?

#90

Post by SuoDuanDao »

tartoran wrote: post #84
jl2718 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a 10x engineer. I have the awesome capability to show you that a project is going to cost 10x the time/budget, and why you don’t need it, and should probably focus on the obvious 1x idea.

But if you claim to be a 10x you’d be able to finish their 1x idea in 1/10th of the time wouldn’t you?

It is 1/10th the time of the original idea...
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