If you look at the original paper (going back to 1968) where the data for a 10x difference was first found, there are a ton of... issues.
I've covered this in detail here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gho89X72Xas
The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
21–30 of 227 posts
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#22It doesn't matter whether 10x programmers exist. Programming is not a sport and as such, competition will only lead to narrow thinking, useless optimization and hatred. What we should really strive for is making programming a more creative activity where people learn from and inspire each other, not a competition. Oh and also, "finding the 10x engineer" feels like a hotspot to inject hidden bias into recruiting.
Communication overhead is expensive. All else being equal, it’s much better to build a small elite team that can operate successfully with less structure and process, rather than a large average one.
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#23I'd argue today a team could be 10x. Yes it requires someone who knows the concepts and can effectively communicate them but also awesome project managers, designers and QA personnel. A great team (I am lucky to be part of one) functions like a well oiled machine churning out acceptably quality features and fixes the problems at a surprising rate.
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#24It doesn't matter whether 10x programmers exist. Programming is not a sport and as such, competition will only lead to narrow thinking, useless optimization and hatred. What we should really strive for is making programming a more creative activity where people learn from and inspire each other, not a competition. Oh and also, "finding the 10x engineer" feels like a hotspot to inject hidden bias into recruiting.
True, but if you culled the bottom 30-50% of programmers, how much productivity have you lost?
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#25The concept of the 10x programmer seems to have been drifted from its original meaning. It isn't that there's a coder that is 10x better than a good coder. It is that a lot of people are really bad at their jobs, and a coder that thinks and learns about problems can be far better than those people. It comes from terrible "corporate drone" software developers in the 80s and 90s - the ones that would takes weeks to dev…
Agreed.
I've never encountered someone that I think is genuinely a 10x programmer. I've worked with a few people that thought I was one, which I'm most certainly not, and I've explained that to them.
I've encountered a lot of what I would call .2x programmers though. As you've said, there are a lot of people that are really bad at the job. It's not a slight either - there are a lot of people doing this job that really don't care for it at all.
It's hard to be good at a job you don't enjoy. Especially if life forces you to do it 40+ hours per week.
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#26Can we stop the self hate already? There definitely are 10x musicians, 10x painters, sportsmen and 10x programmers. You know what never exists in 10x form? Burocrats and middle managers who write articles like this one. I suggest to flag this as fake news and all future articles intended to devalue young talented programmers who yet are to discover their true market value.
I'll bet 10x managers do exist, but they quickly become VPs or CEOs
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#27Can we stop the self hate already? There definitely are 10x musicians, 10x painters, sportsmen and 10x programmers. You know what never exists in 10x form? Burocrats and middle managers who write articles like this one. I suggest to flag this as fake news and all future articles intended to devalue young talented programmers who yet are to discover their true market value.
Not trying to be a jerk, but I think you might need to re-read the article as the author is clearly a developer themselves and thinks that there are definitely 10x developers (just that they can't be found with a simple coding test).
I would like to think I’m one of them, I’d flail about in attempt to solve some random programmer test, but I’m also the guy that sits back and says ‘hey how about we rethink this i n s a n e architecture?’
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#28The OP's example is perfect: he didn't go to the leaf-nodes and write each test by hand. Instead, it was clear that writing a tool to do the job would be better. Software is all about leverage. This is what defines a 10x programmer.
However, I'm constantly amazed how many programmers fail to see the forest for the trees.
To a large extent, not seeing (or seeing and ignoring) this type of solution is learned behavior. Many environments are hostile to this world view. Writing tools (especially those that generate code...eek!) is seen as "over-engineering" and "unnecessary complexity". If you're in a factory, on a line, your job isn't to climb away from your leaf-node.
Any programmer has the potential to be 10x, they just have to see and act upon it. Few do.
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#2910X programmers DO exist. They aren't just a myth, and they aren't just about knowing when to buy vs build, or when to use a particular framework or toolkit, or how to "mentor" other developers. Chris Sawyer wrote 99% of the code for RollerCoaster Tycoon in x86 assembly language, with the remaining one percent written in C. RollerCoaster Tycoon was a beautiful game which still stands the test of time to this day. The…
Not to diminish the achievement, but worth noting I think that RollerCoaster Tycoon was based on his earlier Transport Tycoon engine, so at least he did get to split the work up between two projects.
I have a personal theory the that the average 10x programmer is say 2.5x smarter than average, but also 4x more focused on work, netting a 2.5x4=10x total when you remove all the procrastination and general fumbling around of the average developer.
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#30The concept of the 10x programmer seems to have been drifted from its original meaning. It isn't that there's a coder that is 10x better than a good coder. It is that a lot of people are really bad at their jobs, and a coder that thinks and learns about problems can be far better than those people. It comes from terrible "corporate drone" software developers in the 80s and 90s - the ones that would takes weeks to dev…
Yeah, I can understand the "10x programmer" back when fizzbuzz was still being asked of CS graduates. Not anymore.
To be honest, I didn't know that one... I just did basic double division the first time I saw it (into a float and compared it against an int casted back to a float). Someone in the interview room asked my if I remembered modulo and I was like 'oh yea, it gives you the remainder'