How to be a -10x Engineer • Hacker News Board

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#221

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #149

steveBK123 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emphatically yes, there's some really broken process out there. I sat on a team with 6+ hours per week of full-team, in a room, jira ticket creation/reviewing/sizing/prioritizing. So thats 15% overhead right off the top. This of course was not the only time we spent interacting with tickets, as we then had daily standup, random "check-ins" from product/management on ticket status, and of course actually picking, upda…

I understand developers’ complaints about this sort of thing and I am as much of a Jira-burnout victim as the next coder. But. How much time should a team be spending figuring out what the right thing to do is? Figuring out if the plan is still the right one? 15% honestly doesn’t sound like a number I would automatically assume is ‘too much’ for such activity. I’m not sure even 30% sounds like a crazy high number. Bu…

[deleted]

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#222

Post by watwut » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #92

docandrew wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve never wasted a few minutes on whether a ticket was “critical” or merely “high?” or truly a blocker?

> You’ve never wasted a few minutes on whether a ticket was “critical” or merely “high?” or truly a blocker? Calling "deciding on how to spend your time" a waste of time seems a misnomer.

But ... that person is not deciding how he will spend time. He is deciding which labels to put on ticket. What he will do is not directly related to that.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#223

Post by Jolter » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

6510 wrote: post #160

surprisetalk wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The author probably thinks these issues are caused by bad people instead of bad processes Author here. This is an excellent way to phrase a subtle point that I couldn't figure out how to fit in the piece. I think that -10x engineering is not someone you are, but something you do. And even more commonly, it's something that organizations do for periods of time.

how to become..

The title makes a lot of sense because of the meme “10x engineer”. That is also wrong - being 10x more productive is also something you do, not something you are — but I see the point in following that template.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#224

Post by digging » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

safety1st wrote: post #97

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…

Yeah that was an interesting read. I like the concept of a -10x engineer because they definitely exist (in my mind it is someone whose work moves you farther away from the project goals, rather than closer to them). But a lot of the bullets sounded like stuff bad managers do, not bad engineers. Off the top of my head these are the most common two "negative engineer" behaviors I have seen 1) Biggest one: an engineer w…

I find #2 is fairly easy for me to avoid by focusing on code quality and readability. But working in front-end, I'm always afraid of doing #1. The paradigms shift so quickly I never feel sure I'm using the right patterns.

Time has proven that generally I'm close enough, but I still fear it.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#225

Post by psychoslave » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 3:01 PM UTC

d--b wrote: post #170

DangitBobby wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't say it outright, but it was exactly what I inferred from your comment as well. You said "toxic negativity" which comes across as a moral judgement, and anything that follows comes across as the result of that judgement.

It was a judgement. I do think the author is being a jerk here. But people can be critical without sounding like jerks.

Maybe avoiding to use pejorative wording would make a more convincing argument to promote a view still accepting meaningful advises through criticism, while judging unethical any form of essentialism view which reduces some people to despicable traits, rather than presenting a situation where some people are entangled in abject behaviors.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#226

Post by onos » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 3:02 PM UTC

d23 wrote: post #125

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.

It’s a jira version of “talks a lot, has little to say.”

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#227

Post by liamN » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

> To ensure developers are context-switching, recompilation should take at least 20 seconds.

So true. But only 20 seconds? The project im working on takes 20 MINUTES to compile for any code change. I constantly forget about it while trying to get something else done in the mean time. It frequently takes whole days to track down and verify simple issues.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#228

Post by watwut » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

camjohnson26 wrote: post #108

jerf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not the responsibility of a person pointing out problems to also solve them. Granted, pointing out problems is generally much easier than solving them, and correspondingly less valuable. As I like to say, stand up, spin around, and point at something randomly. You're pointing at a problem of some sort. But that still does not incur a responsibility to someone pointing out a problem to also solve it. It's a popu…

No but it is their job to understand it, otherwise you’re not contributing anything valuable, you’re stirring up drama. If I point to a light switch and call out it’s a problem that does you no good unless I tell you why, and why it’s like that in the first place. The problem with the article is even though it’s right it makes no attempt to explain why, and blames bad people for the problems instead of understanding…

>No but it is their job to understand it, otherwise you’re not contributing anything valuable, you’re stirring up drama

Frankly, this sounds exactly like toxic management where people are not allowed to raise issues which then blames everybody but themselves for consequential infectivity.

> If I point to a light switch and call out it’s a problem that does you no good unless I tell you why, and why it’s like that in the first place.

I I point to a light switch and say that it does not work, I do not need to be able to fix it by myself. For that matter, it is good example, because we are not even allowed to fix electric devices by ourself (workplace safety).

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#229

Post by d23 » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

d--b wrote: post #207

d23 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were directed at a particular person, sure. Otherwise, the author is describing negative traits and behaviors . Have you ever taken any management training? This is the quintessential way of discussing these sorts of things neutrally. Yes, you'd never want to call an individual a -10x engineer, but this is a random article on the internet. It's okay to be a bit headline-attention-grabby and stylistic so the art…

You know what. I do agree with most points in the article. And I do find them funny. Yet, I also met an awful lot of terrific engineers who were brutally aggressive towards anything they felt was stupid. And in my opinion, those people cause at least just as many problems as people who perform really poorly. I think the tone of the article (cynical, exagerating bad traits, etc.) promotes that kind of toxic culture, w…

Fair enough, thanks for clarifying. I haven't run into too many of those people (brutally aggressive and terrific engineers). The toxic people I've run into spent all their time trying to look smart to cover their incompetence.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#230

Post by digging » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 3:05 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #192

mgkimsal wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy tamole. Had worked someplace for a short stint. There was a guy who'd started a couple months before I did. His work was 'revolutionary' and 'groundbreaking' - he'd been trying to build some sort of AOP-style PHP system - PHP4, mind you - without any extensions or internals work. It was just 'program this way' - undocumented patterns that encouraged copy/paste to half-way almost get you something usable (except,…

> "you know those sorts of geniuses that are so far ahead of everyone else that they can't even explain things, and no one else can quite understand it?" Richard Feynman was certainly a genius and he was well-known for his ability to explain complex topics in ways laypeople could grasp.

Totally agreed. I don't trust smart people who can't explain their ideas. It's not that I don't think they're right, it's that I don't think it's a good business idea to operate on faith. But also, being able to break a concept down increases the smart person's level of comprehension of their ideas - it's not only proof, it has tangible benefit.