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How to be a -10x Engineer

taylor.town

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Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#121

Post by postalrat »

m3kw9 wrote: post #112
BoneZone wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. For me this outlines the caveats and pitfalls of software development and management. There is real truth to some of the authors points showing real paths that emerge naturally. If you're going to gaslight him by inferring anyone who is critical is an asshole, maybe you should ask yourself why you're taking the article so personally...

That’s not what he said about anyone critical is an ass, he’s say rather than -10x, worse for a company are assholes and they do exist

I can deal with assholes who get stuff done. Developers who are consistently making negative progress are harder to deal with.

-10x developers can get the just by promising things people depend on but never deliver.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#123

Post by d--b »

surprisetalk wrote: post #34
d--b wrote: post #21

A lot of toxic negativity in that post. Sure bad engineers exist, but you know what is even worse than the -10x engineer: the contagious jerk. https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/studies-being-a-jerk-is... Yep being an asshole spreads like a disease within organizations. Avoid these guys like the plague.

Author here. I don't want to empower jerks. Anything particular I should change? Or is the structure of the essay too cynical overall?

It's brutal.

You want to sound like an Office Space character. But in Office Space, there is no mission, there is no good engineering to do. So all the douche-y people who get in the way of work are more pityful than enemies.

But here, you believe in good engineering yourself, and the -10x engineer you encounter get under your skin. So you're venting online about why you hate their guts (in a funny way, for sure, but still the aggressivity transpires)

It's understandable. I met many bad engineers. They're a nightmare to work with. And yes, many will have a net negative impact on overall productivity. Still, coining the term -10x engineer and making an aggressive piece about all the ways they can screw your work life is not exactly healthy.

Yes, I think your post is going to be empowering jerks. What did you think? That this was just a "funny, haha" post? There are many people who are angered by bad engineers in their daily lives. This is just adding fuel to their anger. This is the Jerk effect taking place. This article reads like a jerk venting, and that language will spread to frustrated people. You can already see it in the comments here.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#125

Post by d23 »

flumpcakes wrote: post #40

> Ask your team to perform tasks that resemble work. Common examples include presentations, diagrams, and ticket management. I'm as salty as the next guy, but in my experience it has been the sub-par employees who are the ones that don't do this. Ticket management is not busy work, it's a necessity for everyone to keep updated. Presentations and diagrams are tools to communicate. I can safely say that by far the most…

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the author probably thinks a healthy balance exists between zero communication and spending 100% of one's time playing JIRA games and visibility hacking.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#127

Post by rc_mob »

From my experience the lowest productivity engineers are the ones that just never talk. I understand being an introvert but we all chat about things we have passion for.

Anyways ive seen so many "programmers" that sit silently in meetings and also just do not produce good code. Usually they produce bad code that I have to revert.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#128

Post by rvba »

d--b wrote: post #21

A lot of toxic negativity in that post. Sure bad engineers exist, but you know what is even worse than the -10x engineer: the contagious jerk. https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/studies-being-a-jerk-is... Yep being an asshole spreads like a disease within organizations. Avoid these guys like the plague.

Let me guess, everyone who criticizes you is a jerk?

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#129

Post by rlpb »

swiftcoder wrote: post #62
flumpcakes wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I see... I just assumed people read tickets and did the work and updated the ticket? For example, I went through a dozen tickets this morning and 96% of my time was spent either writing updates or doing the work the tickets were talking about. 4% probably went to reading the ticket itself and placing it in the correct place after updates/work. That 4% means meetings later will flow faster, and I don't have to rem…

There are definitely corporate cultures where updating ticket status at regular intervals is higher priority than actually working the problem in the ticket.

Of course it is. That means that you work on the problem, but when a regular interval arrives, you stop working on the problem to update the ticket instead. Once updated, you go back to working on the problem. That's how status updates are supposed to work.

Inverting the priority would mean that you never update tickets until you're done fixing the problem. That might be possible in small organisations or for small problems. Everywhere else, it's necessary to provide updates from time to time before the problem is solved.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#130

Post by Ensorceled »

flumpcakes wrote: post #60
michaelt wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ticket management is not busy work, it's a necessity for everyone to keep updated. I would say that rather depends on how much of it you do.

Oh, I see... I just assumed people read tickets and did the work and updated the ticket? For example, I went through a dozen tickets this morning and 96% of my time was spent either writing updates or doing the work the tickets were talking about. 4% probably went to reading the ticket itself and placing it in the correct place after updates/work. That 4% means meetings later will flow faster, and I don't have to rem…

> Oh, I see... I just assumed people read tickets and did the work and updated the ticket?

There are a LOT of Professional Scrum Masters and Product Managers who want to constantly review the state of tickets, make update/status comments and communicate simple questions and answers via the ticket system.

Did you mean 'x'? Yes, I meant 'x'.

Our slack bot channel exploded when we hired a new Product Manager who communicated strictly via ticket updates, literally dozens of alerts per day. They got upset when they found out every single developer had unsubscribed from all the ticket channels because of the noise.

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