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

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#331

Post by chang1 » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

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've discovered that this can be a deflection tactic for some. Usually it happens in a situation where I try my best to explain a part of an app or system. The other person is overwhelmed or confused but doesn't just say that, and instead kicks the can down the road by saying there is a lack of documentation to reference or are in need of diagrams. When I then take the time to add info to a wiki or spend time diagramming concepts with those developers, it seems to not help aid understanding at all. Then I realize I just wasted a lot of time.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#332

Post by vardump » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

Just need to put two of these -10x engineers working together. The results should be amazing!

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#333

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 6:38 PM UTC

jackblemming wrote: post #329

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought so until I met one. He knew what our team lead wanted before he wanted it and would already have it done, along with all of his assigned work. He would take initiative and build tools that the whole team could use and be more effective with. He had a huge impact on me.

That just sounds like a developer who had worked on a similar project before, which would obviously look like some kind of genius vs those starting from scratch.

Negative. He came from working in startups to working in defense. The work could not have been any more different. He was initially unfamiliar with most of the tools and processes that we used.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#334

Post by rzzzt » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

nrclark wrote: post #325

Herval_freire wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yeah that was an interesting read. I like the concept of a -10x engineer because they definitely exist I don't believe 10x engineers actually exist. Maybe 1.5x, 2x, or 3x engineers exist at most. 10x is a huge exaggeration of human capability. Get this, say a project takes a year to complete. The concept is saying a 10x engineer can do this in about month. If such a person exists it will be so rare I estimate that m…

a 10x engineer might not exist. A -10x engineer (or more accurately: a 1/10x engineer) definitely does. This article isn't about engineers that make your team better; it's about engineers that make your team worse.

The distinction is important: someone else already wrote that the -10× person will move you further away from the goalpost, while the 10⁻¹× counterpart is still moving towards it, only slower.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#335

Post by surprisetalk » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 6:44 PM UTC

quietthrow wrote: post #308

Does it bother anybody that he is promoting his own article by posting it? I have seen this and many other comments by this user as what seems like a funnel to book time with him and eventually be a paying customer. I am not sure how I feel about this.

I've been writing/posting a lot lately because I got laid off recently :)

Honestly, I've just been yearning to meet new people who love making things.

It's super fun chatting with strangers on the phone!

EDIT:

Actually, if y'all have extra money lying around, consider donating to my AIDS/Lifecycle campaign :)

Improve living conditions for people with HIV/AIDS

[1] https://giving.aidslifecycle.org/participant/taylor

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#336

Post by JohnFen » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

nrclark wrote: post #325

Herval_freire wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yeah that was an interesting read. I like the concept of a -10x engineer because they definitely exist I don't believe 10x engineers actually exist. Maybe 1.5x, 2x, or 3x engineers exist at most. 10x is a huge exaggeration of human capability. Get this, say a project takes a year to complete. The concept is saying a 10x engineer can do this in about month. If such a person exists it will be so rare I estimate that m…

a 10x engineer might not exist. A -10x engineer (or more accurately: a 1/10x engineer) definitely does. This article isn't about engineers that make your team better; it's about engineers that make your team worse.

> a 10x engineer might not exist

10x engineers do exist, but they're vanishingly rare. I actually met one once. He eventually burnt out and left the industry permanently.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#337

Post by larsrc » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 6:46 PM UTC

Missing: Start migrating the code base to new technologies/frameworks early, but never finish it.

Though that might actually end up costing more that 400 hours of wasted time.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#338

Post by nico » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

Just had a conversation about this.

Let’s let AI do all the busy work for us.

I personally just want to think deeply, share ideas and connect with people.

I don’t want to be forced to do any meetings, presentations, tickets, code, documents…

I do want to produce some of those things, as long as I feel like they help me in what I want to do.

I want AI to do all the shit I don’t want to do.

I still want to work, interact with people, feel needed and feel connected. Just not forced to waste my time.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#339

Post by Herval_freire » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 6:49 PM UTC

hcs wrote: post #324

Herval_freire wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yeah that was an interesting read. I like the concept of a -10x engineer because they definitely exist I don't believe 10x engineers actually exist. Maybe 1.5x, 2x, or 3x engineers exist at most. 10x is a huge exaggeration of human capability. Get this, say a project takes a year to complete. The concept is saying a 10x engineer can do this in about month. If such a person exists it will be so rare I estimate that m…

Negative 10x

Oh man. My eyes just skipped over that negative sign every time. Now it makes sense. I thought the article was sarcastic. I'm blind.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#340

Post by swiftcoder » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 6:49 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #275

swiftcoder wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Figuring out if the plan is still the right one? 15% every week is the problem here. If you spend 10% of your annual budget on upfront planning and 5% monthly on checkins, that's maybe ok. Putting the whole team in a room every week is just going to churn the plan constantly - inputs likely aren't changing with that frequency, and you aren't going to be able to pull in all the other stakeholders that often anyway

Sorry, are you suggesting a better way to operate is to have the team go off for like a five week offsite to come up with a plan for the rest of the year? Then once a month, they get a day to figure out if the plan’s still working? It’s an option, I guess… let us know how it works out for you.

I mean... yeah. That's kind of how a lot of big enterprise projects with VP-level visibility get managed (I participated in versions of this at both Amazon and Facebook)

Obviously you don't need to pull all the junior eng offsite for a whole month, but the engineering leads + PMs + engineering management end up there. And obviously there's also ongoing prioritisation happening between leads/PM/management throughout the year - but that doesn't require pulling the whole team every week.