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The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

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Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#171

Post by NohatCoder »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #155

I think part of the objection to 10x programmers is around expectations, self-assessment, and attitudes. There are people out there who have difficulty working with others. Some of those people feel that this difficulty is because they're so FUCKING SMART and the others are morons who are beneath them. They're extremely difficult to work with in a team environment, but come across as completely confident about their…

I think assholery and competence are orthogonal qualities. But normal competent people don't need to tell everyone how smart they are, so you won't usually notice them as much.

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#172

Post by Traster »

sub7 wrote: post #161
marcus_holmes wrote: post #155

I think part of the objection to 10x programmers is around expectations, self-assessment, and attitudes. There are people out there who have difficulty working with others. Some of those people feel that this difficulty is because they're so FUCKING SMART and the others are morons who are beneath them. They're extremely difficult to work with in a team environment, but come across as completely confident about their…

Disagree with this. There are absolutely 10x and even 50x engineers out there. Yes they almost always have egos and people complain about them all the time. But they also build the right product at the right time for the right user and do the work of an entire product + engineering team - often much faster. Most large, successful companies today have a handful of these guys among the first 20 employees.

This is part of the problem, we (mostly) all agree there actually are 10x and 50x engineers, but there are some people that are conflating 10x execution is being 10x the dickhead. Look in this thread, there are plenty of examples of 10x developers who aren't total dicks to the people around them and don't negatively effect everyone else.

What we need to do is look at the intersections: There are people who are 10x engineers (Peter Norvig) -great. There are 10x engineers who are dicks to the people around them (Linus Torvalds). There are people who think they're 10x engineers but aren't, which are fine (let's be kind as use me as an example) and there are people who think they're 10x engineers who aren't - but are dickheads because of it.

Even if you are a 10x engineer, you shouldn't be a dick - because it's demonstrable that you don't have to be a dick to be a 10x engineer.

I would say it's pretty obvious that the group of people who think they're a 10x engineer and act like a dick is way bigger than the number of actual 10x engineers. That's what I see in the programming community general - everyone has the story of some guy who thinks he's a rockstar but is actually just making everyone's lives hell.

Now if you don't actually know if someone is a 10x-er you've got a group of possible 10x-ers and its polluted by this large pool of people who really are dicks, and really aren't a 10xer

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#173

Post by pepper_sauce »

petilon wrote: post #49

10x programmers do exist. But here's the thing: its not worth being a 10x programmer. Managers don't necessarily want them. First of all, if you complete a project 10x faster than the expected time, managers will assume that they had overestimated the project, as opposed to recognizing that you're a 10x programmer. I have seen this time after time after time. Secondly, if a manager does recognize that you're a 10x pr…

The modern workplace for an employee is really not designed to incentivize above average productivity. I don't claim to be an anything-X developer but I find my productivity runs in cycles. In the circumstances I've turned out high value work in a matter of hours or days, I've literally been told by colleagues to slow down because I was making them look bad, while management assume that's just how long the task takes. At the other end of the spectrum when I'm (relatively) under-performing nobody cares: that's just how long a task takes, and nobody feels threatened.

The damping effect is real.

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#174

Post by marcus_holmes »

leroman wrote: post #164
marcus_holmes wrote: post #155

I think part of the objection to 10x programmers is around expectations, self-assessment, and attitudes. There are people out there who have difficulty working with others. Some of those people feel that this difficulty is because they're so FUCKING SMART and the others are morons who are beneath them. They're extremely difficult to work with in a team environment, but come across as completely confident about their…

Being a consultant for a considerable part of my career, whilst sometimes working solo on writing a system from scratch. In one example, re-writing a system written by 7 team members + architect, taking half the time.. Maybe due to working in an organization without a formal org position.. I had to make sure bad requirements, process, tech decisions etc.. don't get in the way of properly collecting requirements, desi…

I'm glad this appears to give you some satisfaction, but I hope I never have to work with you, or around you, or on any project you've worked on.

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#175

Post by marcus_holmes »

Traster wrote: post #172
sub7 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree with this. There are absolutely 10x and even 50x engineers out there. Yes they almost always have egos and people complain about them all the time. But they also build the right product at the right time for the right user and do the work of an entire product + engineering team - often much faster. Most large, successful companies today have a handful of these guys among the first 20 employees.

This is part of the problem, we (mostly) all agree there actually are 10x and 50x engineers, but there are some people that are conflating 10x execution is being 10x the dickhead. Look in this thread, there are plenty of examples of 10x developers who aren't total dicks to the people around them and don't negatively effect everyone else. What we need to do is look at the intersections: There are people who are 10x en…

This explains what I was trying to say better than I did :)

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#176

Post by marcus_holmes »

NohatCoder wrote: post #171
marcus_holmes wrote: post #155

I think part of the objection to 10x programmers is around expectations, self-assessment, and attitudes. There are people out there who have difficulty working with others. Some of those people feel that this difficulty is because they're so FUCKING SMART and the others are morons who are beneath them. They're extremely difficult to work with in a team environment, but come across as completely confident about their…

I think assholery and competence are orthogonal qualities. But normal competent people don't need to tell everyone how smart they are, so you won't usually notice them as much.

It's also that people who need to tell you how smart they are, usually aren't ;)

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#177

Post by Beltiras »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #155

I think part of the objection to 10x programmers is around expectations, self-assessment, and attitudes. There are people out there who have difficulty working with others. Some of those people feel that this difficulty is because they're so FUCKING SMART and the others are morons who are beneath them. They're extremely difficult to work with in a team environment, but come across as completely confident about their…

I've been a 10X in the past. I don't exactly know why it faded away. Might be that I really REALLY believed in the mission back then but haven't found the spark for anything since. I'm not sure I exuded the toxicity you associate with 10X but I know I wasn't pleasant. I put myself under way too much pressure to get results.

My boss is a 10X all the time. I guess he believes in the mission he's on renovating the IT infrastructure of our org. He's super nice. The antithesis of what you speak of.

Point is: Personalities are different and not necessarily correlated with the 10X trait (if there is such a thing). It might be a host of different circumstances.

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#178

Post by mikekchar »

sibeliuss wrote: post #145
mikekchar wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. We had 31 million lines of code and it was so complex that even changing 1 line had massive implications. Definitely the worst code base I've ever worked on. I originally started working there as a contractor because they had single functions which had reached the file size limits for their build system and they didn't know what to do (you know... maybe split this function up into smaller functions... maybe...).…

Very curious to know what you were working on! 31 million lines of code?

It was a telephone switch (Now defunct Bell Norther Research)

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#179

Post by ten_xer »

As a 10x programmer myself (NOT TO BRAG) I will tell you we definitely exist. My greatest annoyance is watching the rest of you peons crawl along at a snails pace while I am inventing the next groundbreaking technology that will completely flip your existence upside down. Perhaps the only person who could even understand my level of motivation is Elon Musk, but I'm not even sure if I would have the patience to explain it to him.

It is a daily occurrence that while you are trying to find a missing semicolon that I'm already cleverly arranging your old commits using git rebase to turn your finger-painting into a Van Gogh. My only advice is just to get used to it, because we aren't going away. The best thing you can do is hope to get a management role so that you can be freed from the burden of competing with us. Let's be frank: most of us 10x programmers are on the deep end of the spectrum and therefore won't want or perform well in a management role, but for those of us that can, managing normal programmers would be excruciating.

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#180

Post by kunglao »

Considering how software development has become relatively lucrative and so many want to throw themselves at this, it's bound to create a large pool of incompetent engineers. Specially because this isn't an industry that is regulated like medical doctors or architects. Given that, I think it should be relatively easy to find 10x performers on different teams.

However, to find a 10x guy in a high-performing team, that'd be a sight :)

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