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How to be a -10x Engineer

taylor.town

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Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#501

Post by The_Colonel »

Herval_freire wrote: post #495
The_Colonel wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your interpretation that "10x engineer" has to mean 10 standard deviations is completely arbitrary.

I didn't say it has to mean that. 1x is the average. We agree on that. The std can be anything. But the max possible std is 1x. that's all I'm saying. You can now define the std to be whatever you want up to 1x. So I take the most ludicrously large std then interpret what the term 10x means in terms of the maximum std. 10x is in this case, 10 std from the norm IF 1x was the std. So the 10x concept is ludicrously impr…

> The std can be anything. But the max possible std is 1x. that's all I'm saying.

And it's wrong. Read the title of this discussion again, "How to be a -10x Engineer" and think about what it means for max. std value.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#502

Post by Herval_freire »

The_Colonel wrote: post #501
Herval_freire wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it has to mean that. 1x is the average. We agree on that. The std can be anything. But the max possible std is 1x. that's all I'm saying. You can now define the std to be whatever you want up to 1x. So I take the most ludicrously large std then interpret what the term 10x means in terms of the maximum std. 10x is in this case, 10 std from the norm IF 1x was the std. So the 10x concept is ludicrously impr…

> The std can be anything. But the max possible std is 1x. that's all I'm saying. And it's wrong. Read the title of this discussion again, "How to be a -10x Engineer" and think about what it means for max. std value.

[flagged]

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#503

Post by The_Colonel »

Herval_freire wrote: post #502
The_Colonel wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The std can be anything. But the max possible std is 1x. that's all I'm saying. And it's wrong. Read the title of this discussion again, "How to be a -10x Engineer" and think about what it means for max. std value.

[flagged]

> No one and I mean no one has seen a project accelerate backwards by negative 10.

Have you read the article? -10x is not about "accelerating backwards", it's about bringing the project to stand still / significantly slowing it down.

And I have seen this multiple times. People who in one way or another managed to slow down other people. Toxic people can create such an environment that the productive people quit. They don't bring smaller value, not even zero value, they bring negative value to the team/project.

> -1x means the project is rapidly disassembling itself and engineers are losing knowledge and intelligence.

I don't know where you come with this arbitrary interpretation of exactly -1, but yes, that happens to projects.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#504

Post by Herval_freire »

The_Colonel wrote: post #503
Herval_freire wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> No one and I mean no one has seen a project accelerate backwards by negative 10. Have you read the article? -10x is not about "accelerating backwards", it's about bringing the project to stand still / significantly slowing it down. And I have seen this multiple times. People who in one way or another managed to slow down other people. Toxic people can create such an environment that the productive people quit. They…

Bring a project to a stand still with the term -10x? The term itself doesn't make sense.

I know the article is generally just talking about bad engineers. However the topic I started here is more about the term 10x.

>And I have seen this multiple times. People who in one way or another managed to slow down other people. Toxic people can create such an environment that the productive people quit. They don't bring smaller value, not even zero value, they bring negative value to the team/project.

Sure but negative progress or -10x progress or 10x progress is just not realistic. The 10 in the term 10x is the thing that is arbitrary. Not only is it arbitrary it's completely unrealistic.

>I don't know where you come with this arbitrary interpretation of exactly -1, but yes, that happens to projects.

Arbitrary definition of 1x? 1x is default -1x would be the default but backwards. It's anything but arbitrary as it's the smallest whole number metric for negative performance. The 10 on 10x is again the arbitrary constant here. Why 10? is it because we have 10 fingers or use base 10 in our number system? 10 is Arbitrary.

Also, Losing knowledge and intelligence is the equivalent of brain damage so are people banging their heads against walls and shooting up on brain damaging drugs? Doubt it. Productivity stops at zero, negative progress is so rare it's basically non-existent, that is unless you think people are regularly suffering from brain damage.

People who use the term 10x or -10x as some kind of relatively accurate metric (like many in this thread are doing) aren't applying good intuition or statistical knowledge to the situation. 2x for really good engineers and 0x for really bad engineers are the more technically accurate term. I get the usage of 10x as purely an expression but that is Not what the topic of this thread as evolved into.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#505

Post by The_Colonel »

Herval_freire wrote: post #504
The_Colonel wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one and I mean no one has seen a project accelerate backwards by negative 10. Have you read the article? -10x is not about "accelerating backwards", it's about bringing the project to stand still / significantly slowing it down. And I have seen this multiple times. People who in one way or another managed to slow down other people. Toxic people can create such an environment that the productive people quit. They…

Bring a project to a stand still with the term -10x? The term itself doesn't make sense. I know the article is generally just talking about bad engineers. However the topic I started here is more about the term 10x. >And I have seen this multiple times. People who in one way or another managed to slow down other people. Toxic people can create such an environment that the productive people quit. They don't bring smal…

> Not only is it arbitrary it's completely unrealistic.

Pick one. Can't be both.

> 1x is default -1x would be the default but backwards

Not backwards. In terms of value, 1x is a value produced by 1 typical developer. -1x is a decrease of value.

> Also, Losing knowledge and intelligence is the equivalent of brain damage so are people banging their heads against walls and shooting up on brain damaging drugs?

Organizations lose knowledge all the time because people quit because of e.g. toxicity in the workplace (brought by -10x employees).

I guess I'm done with this conversation, it no longer interests me.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#506

Post by Herval_freire »

The_Colonel wrote: post #505
Herval_freire wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bring a project to a stand still with the term -10x? The term itself doesn't make sense. I know the article is generally just talking about bad engineers. However the topic I started here is more about the term 10x. >And I have seen this multiple times. People who in one way or another managed to slow down other people. Toxic people can create such an environment that the productive people quit. They don't bring smal…

> Not only is it arbitrary it's completely unrealistic. Pick one. Can't be both. > 1x is default -1x would be the default but backwards Not backwards. In terms of value, 1x is a value produced by 1 typical developer. -1x is a decrease of value. > Also, Losing knowledge and intelligence is the equivalent of brain damage so are people banging their heads against walls and shooting up on brain damaging drugs? Organizati…

>Pick one. Can't be both.

Pick what? I didn't pick anything. I'm just laying out examples.

>Not backwards. In terms of value, 1x is a value produced by 1 typical developer. -1x is a decrease of value.

Yeah so my point is -1x is Not arbitrary. You said it is. I simply said it isn't.

>Organizations lose knowledge all the time because people quit because of e.g. toxicity in the workplace (brought by -10x employees).

That's one way of looking at it. It's valid. But by itself I was referring to an honest employee acting to the best of his capability. Like IQ this part cannot be negative. Things like side effects of a bad actor deliberately damaging the company is not something I was referring to. Overall though this type of thing is hard to measure and anecdotally rare.

I mean if you want to factor in terrorists who bomb the tech and kill everyone in the company into your model, sure. Terrorists have -10000x productivity.

>I guess I'm done with this conversation, it no longer interests me.

Sure. That's fine. The conversation is getting into the nitty gritty of interpretation of words which is pointless imo. I think you're pretty clear about what I'm talking about. All in all though my statistical interpretation is still ultimately correct.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#507

Post by flippinburgers »

JohnFen wrote: post #313
aetherson wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Rewrite from scratch everything that engineer X touched in four years of working here after he leaves" does not sound like a feasible approach to development. Also, while having good code separation between contractual APIs is a good goal and worth pushing towards, the idea that nobody would ever have shared ownership of any code unit between API contracts is too extreme.

"Rewrite it" is almost always the wrong answer, although it can be an overpowering instinct. Personally, through decades of experience, I've learned that when this impulse hits me, I need to consciously remind myself of these truths: 1) The engineer(s) that wrote the offensive code were almost certainly not idiots. The code is probably that way for a reason, even if that reason isn't obvious to me. 2) If I embark on…

Have you met, for instance, the "clean architecture" paradigm? No there are definitely patterns that will be used by developers which end up getting in the way of the intent of the code, making it harder to reason about and maintain over time.

The example that I had to deal with most recently used a "clean architecture" approach in an api. The incoming calls went through three layers of redundant code - of which each layer had its own set of unit tests - before hitting the db and then passing up the response back through the stack.

It deeply annoys me to have to deal with people who have some pattern like this that they read about and, I assume mostly due to its relative obscurity, they feel ... smart? ... when applying it and forcing whomever comes after to deal with it.

To say that I want to viciously rip out the redundant layers is an understatement.

Re: How to be a -10x Engineer

#509

Post by Xelynega »

oblio wrote: post #433
Xelynega wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that kind of self-fulfilling? Only choose technologies that are popular for production stacks -> more people using those technologies professionally(implying less using others) -> only choose popular technologies -> etc. From a "making a quality product" standpoint it would make more sense to me to choose the technology intelligently according to the needs of the product. Anything less is just a business mythol…

> From a "making a quality product" standpoint it would make more sense to me to choose the technology intelligently according to the needs of the product. Anything less is just a business mythology about trying to deliver a lower quality product for a lower cost. The "needs of product" should include "long term maintenance cost".

They should and I'm not saying to write it in a new language just because it meets the needs a little better. But in a world where the primary motivation for most things is profit, do you think "developer/maintenance costs" are having a little too much weight in the decisions.
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