“Normal” engineers are the key to great teams • Hacker News Board

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#61

Post by Muromec » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 9:58 PM UTC

jajko wrote: post #15

nullpoint420 wrote: post #4

Most 10x engineers I've met are usually very creative and care deeply about the user experience and keeping code maintainable over time. Most 1x developers just care about getting the job done regardless of care or code quality, which in my experience has led to conflict.

I've rarely seen those 10x engineers to bring massive long term added value. Most are/were well aware of their skills and detested working on anything but newest and shiniest, desperately trying to make work a fun park for them regardless whether its actually a good idea for the company giving them paychecks. Which works for some time, or when extensively coached, but eventually they move since their time is oh so pr…

>Then people wonder or complain when business doesn't appreciate devs. How would you look at folks who are critical to your success yet often don't have your company's best interest at the center of their efforts.

Does the company have my best interests at the center of their efforts or I can be shown the door at any given moment to please shareholders? No hard feeling pls, it's just business and I have only one life to enjoy.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#62

Post by renewiltord » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 9:58 PM UTC

This stuff is that self-indulgent pablum that comes from the genre of "poor are happier than rich" and such. It's always reinforced by the mediocre because everyone wants to believe they're key to something. The long and short of it is that the people who are buying your work are adequate determiners of how key you are.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#63

Post by CrimsonRain » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 9:59 PM UTC

jaggederest wrote: post #5

I like this article particularly because I think the trope that there's something unique and different about software engineering is pretty toxic, both to we people in the field and people looking to employ people in the field. These days it feels a bit like another well known toxic field, finance, in that people conflate an outsized leverage for personal valor. It's laudable to do your work well and go home to the r…

Yet, it is trivial to find "competent engineer" in other fields and software engineering is filled with mediocre ones at best.

When there's 1000 ways to do a thing, with wildly different pros and cons, and insane amount of unknowns in a field that is evolving so rapidly that it is (near) impossible for someone to keep up, being "competent" is not easy.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#64

Post by bjornsing » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 9:59 PM UTC

There are 10x engineers, and 100x, and 1000x. The only thing required to separate the wheat from the chaff is a hard enough problem. Now deal with it.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#65

Post by 0xbadcafebee » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 10:02 PM UTC

When did IEEE become host to clickbait nonsense? This whole take feels like an editorial by a junior engineer going off vibes. It's all off-base, from the misunderstanding of how to measure productivity, to what output matters, to the idea that there is such a thing as a "normal" software engineer. It's kind of embarrassing.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#66

Post by moffkalast » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 10:05 PM UTC

vrnvu wrote: post #36

> 10x engineers have dark backgrounds, are rarely seen doing user-interface work, and are poor mentors and interviewers If you think a great (10x) engineer has bad social skills, isn’t a good mentor, and isn’t a strong teammate… you’ve never actually worked with one. What truly makes someone a great engineer is being technically impeccable and having next-level soft skills.

> 10x engineers have dark backgrounds

I think this is true, but in the metaphorical sense hah. Few with a happy childhood end up this way.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#67

Post by whstl » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 10:05 PM UTC

alfalfasprout wrote: post #32

gmm1990 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any open source repositories where this is an example? I keep hearing the 10x people ruin everything but I wouldn’t call that person 10x. I don’t understand how it’s objectionable that some people are more productive than others.

The question is in how they're productive. If they're productive because they're effectively cutting corners and leaving a wake of tech debt others have to clean up then they are productive while slowing down their team (or worse, the company) as a whole.

Anyone that has been doing this job knows that the majority of average developers in any workplace will also cut corners every once in a while and leave a lot of tech debt to others, with very few exceptions.

This myth that more productive developers are somehow worse and will ruin projects is just rationalization without any ground in reality.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#68

Post by bloomingkales » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 10:06 PM UTC

beastman82 wrote: post #14

Every 10x engineer I've known has carried entire teams of normal engineers. ymmv but I've seen probably 5 instances of this and 0 instances of teams of normal engineers being super productive.

What are the details of this? Any engineer that built most of the stuff is not a 10x engineer. It's someone that really knows their way around their own house.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#69

Post by dnissley » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 10:09 PM UTC

booleandilemma wrote: post #41

behrlich wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> completely obsessed with the project, like it’s their main hobby/purpose I think you figured it out.

If your main hobby or purpose is to make someone else rich you're a slave.

if you also make yourself rich in the process, are you still a slave?

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#70

Post by whstl » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 10:09 PM UTC

Muromec wrote: post #61

jajko wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've rarely seen those 10x engineers to bring massive long term added value. Most are/were well aware of their skills and detested working on anything but newest and shiniest, desperately trying to make work a fun park for them regardless whether its actually a good idea for the company giving them paychecks. Which works for some time, or when extensively coached, but eventually they move since their time is oh so pr…

>Then people wonder or complain when business doesn't appreciate devs. How would you look at folks who are critical to your success yet often don't have your company's best interest at the center of their efforts. Does the company have my best interests at the center of their efforts or I can be shown the door at any given moment to please shareholders? No hard feeling pls, it's just business and I have only one life…

Yeah, after joining management I'm 100% behind this thinking.

Anyone wanting to improve their resume or have fun from 9 to 5 is in the right here. Life is short.

However it is my responsibility as a manager to ensure the team is working towards its goals and nobody is making anyone's life difficult.