There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones • Hacker News Board

Re: There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones

#101

Post by lifeisstillgood » Fri, Apr 05, 2013, 7:01 AM UTC

clubhi wrote: post #91

nhashem wrote: post #22

"x10 developers" are, in fact, proficient developers, who are experienced with their stack and problem domain. Well, I'd say this is only true for your typical corporate entity, where their products are basically just web applications that represent a state machine using some sort of database store for persistence (which is... basically everything). By the time the company has achieved some size, there's enough proce…

" ask yourself this: are you in an environment where a 10x developer could actually demonstrate 10x productivity?" I'd buy whatever you were selling if you started off with that line.

Yeah that struck me too

By extension, that environment is also one where a 1.5x developer is going to repay their salary

Re: There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones

#102

Post by touristtam » Fri, Apr 05, 2013, 7:06 AM UTC

vwinsyee wrote: post #15

I'm reminded of a paper [1] that "discovered a test which divides programming sheep from non-programming goats." The claim is that there are two distinct populations of people (those who can programming and those who inherently cannot). Each population has its own variance, e.g. as the OP mentions, the best programmer in each population might be 30-40% better than a lower-tier programmer in the same population. But t…

This is why I like the news over here. Thanks. :)

Re: There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones

#103

Post by sgift » Fri, Apr 05, 2013, 7:23 AM UTC

benaston wrote: post #71

davidwoof1 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I would venture that, for any pair of moderately experienced developers, it's almost always possible to find a pair of tasks such that one of them is twice (or even ten times) as fast as the other. I completely disagree. The FizzBuzz syndrome is very real: when I do developer screenings, the majority of candidates simply can't program even tiny problems. There's no way they're faster than anybody on my team at a…

The fizzbuzz syndrome is real alright. But someone failing fizzbuzz is not an indicator that they will always be incapable of development. It just means they are very junior and require training. Frighteningly for the West, Indian and Chinese companies appear to grok this and actually develop their employees. US and UK companies throw their hands up in empty self-satisfaction that their work is so intellectually diff…

The problem is that these people are supposed to be programmers, i.e. people who have been trained already. Yes, it is real that companies do not want to train people - and that is a problem in itself. But if someone tells me "I am a professional programmer" and I give him FizzBuzz and he cannot solve it it is no training problem. It is a problem with hiring: How could such a person ever hold a position as a programmer (without "trainee"/"apprentice" behind their job title)?

Re: There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones

#104

Post by usea » Fri, Apr 05, 2013, 7:27 AM UTC

benaston wrote: post #71

davidwoof1 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I would venture that, for any pair of moderately experienced developers, it's almost always possible to find a pair of tasks such that one of them is twice (or even ten times) as fast as the other. I completely disagree. The FizzBuzz syndrome is very real: when I do developer screenings, the majority of candidates simply can't program even tiny problems. There's no way they're faster than anybody on my team at a…

The fizzbuzz syndrome is real alright. But someone failing fizzbuzz is not an indicator that they will always be incapable of development. It just means they are very junior and require training. Frighteningly for the West, Indian and Chinese companies appear to grok this and actually develop their employees. US and UK companies throw their hands up in empty self-satisfaction that their work is so intellectually diff…

I worked with a developer for a year and a half, who has 11 years of experience, who cannot code fizz buzz and cannot accomplish basic tasks. I have to hold his hand through even the smallest changes or bug fixes. These people exist.

He just got a new job at a large company with a significant pay-raise. The industry is filled with people who are, to put it bluntly, incompetent.

edit: that last line is a little harsh. I don't mean "filled" as in entirely or even mostly. I am just trying to say they aren't uncommon.

Re: There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones

#105

Post by geon » Fri, Apr 05, 2013, 7:29 AM UTC

benaston wrote: post #71

davidwoof1 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I would venture that, for any pair of moderately experienced developers, it's almost always possible to find a pair of tasks such that one of them is twice (or even ten times) as fast as the other. I completely disagree. The FizzBuzz syndrome is very real: when I do developer screenings, the majority of candidates simply can't program even tiny problems. There's no way they're faster than anybody on my team at a…

The fizzbuzz syndrome is real alright. But someone failing fizzbuzz is not an indicator that they will always be incapable of development. It just means they are very junior and require training. Frighteningly for the West, Indian and Chinese companies appear to grok this and actually develop their employees. US and UK companies throw their hands up in empty self-satisfaction that their work is so intellectually diff…

How senior would you need to be to write fizz-buzz? Will someone ever gork that if they didn't after Teach Yourself Xlang in 24 Hours?

Re: There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones

#106

Post by downtoearth » Fri, Apr 05, 2013, 7:30 AM UTC

straight_talk wrote: post #14

downtoearth wrote: post #5

How to tell whether I'm a 1/10x developer or not? Often it took me 3 months just to get a asp.net web application, as I'm unable to cope with the frequent requirement changes.

Make an estimate when you start a task. If it takes you 10x the time you probably are.

Good idea, number always tell the truth.

Re: There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones

#107

Post by gcatalfamo » Fri, Apr 05, 2013, 7:35 AM UTC

so what do i have to do to shift from 1/10 to 1x ?

Re: There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones

#108

Post by dchichkov » Fri, Apr 05, 2013, 7:37 AM UTC

I think the author was just plain wrong in his decision assigning that transition task to that developer:

   """ They were just in the middle of a transition from a homebrewed framework into a popular open-source one, which I was intimately familiar with.

The author should have been transitioning the application to the new PHP framework himself. He is intimately familiar with it (and only it?), after all. And that other guy probably should have been assigned some other task, that he could be efficient at. Or let go.

Instead, it looks like this other guy was assigned a task in which he would be very inefficient, and then micromanaged by newly hired CTO. So no surprise that it ended in that huge time waste.

Re: There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones

#109

Post by contingencies » Fri, Apr 05, 2013, 7:52 AM UTC

If you don't have your existing coding team involved in the interview process for new people, then you are looking for trouble. The net cause is either your own poor processes and resource allocation (ie. bad hire) or weird internal procedures/standards (overwhelmingly difficult for newcomers to grapple with).

Anyway, '10x your tier of productivity'-style elitism is pointless. People will always either accept new colleagues or get shirty ... there is no objective metric for the infinite range of potential human foibles.

That said, removing someone too early could easily prove a loss ... often people who think differently are a 100x asset. If you can influence an important resource allocation decision with interesting information, then saving both a month's time and the potential alternative productivity for a bunch of fellow developers could easily pay for a hire's first few.

Software's complex, mmkay. Humans are even worse. Chill, we are all flawed creatures :)

Re: There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones

#110

Post by jdlshore » Fri, Apr 05, 2013, 7:57 AM UTC

justin_vanw wrote: post #19

Well, if the author kindof hasn't seen it, I guess I should ignore this stuff: Boehm, Barry W., and Philip N. Papaccio. 1988. "Understanding and Controlling Software Costs." IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering SE-14, no. 10 (October): 1462-77. Boehm, Barry, 1981. Software Engineering Economics, Boston, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1981. Boehm, Barry, et al, 2000. Software Cost Estimation with Cocomo II, Boston, Mass.…

Have you read those references? Or are you just quoting them blindly?

Laurent Bossavit has read them, and he reports that they are, for the most part, reporting on each other and on anecdotes. There is no actual, scientific evidence for the "10x programmer." He writes up his search for the evidence in his book "The Leprechauns of Software Development." It's a fascinating look at how a supposedly-rational group of people has taken a myth and blown up into well-known "fact."