Satoshi Nakamoto is a great example of a 1000x engineer (or a bunch of 1000x engineers) with an impact measured in trillions of USD, but the article may be right that he wouldn't have been able to have that impact inside a big financial organization, as his engineering is disruptive.
Busting the 10x software engineer myth
21–30 of 356 posts
Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth
#22I know "10x engineers" exist; some people are fakes and put forward things that look like they have high impact but are actually a bit shoddy. Some people like to be present and suck up. But some people really do just work hard, smart and have deep passion for what they're doing- and importantly: pride, which makes the quality of the content great too. Some of the best engineers I know "visit" bits of code or infrast…
“Adding people to a late project makes it later”. Equally, replacing high performers with multiple people wouldn't work most of the time.
Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth
#23Very sf-type of term, is it still in use? From an eu perspective the idea to rely on some members of your team to be 10 times more productive than others seems like a terrible idea for anything longer than a 1 month sprint. That's not to say people's raw smartness, competence and experiences are the same just that a better focus would be growing the team as a whole.
Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth
#24> Wrote hard-to-understand procedural code to 5000-line files. Did not actively share knowledge with his peers. The author seems to mean prima donna, not a 10x engineer and then goes on to destroy that strawman. Actively sharing knowledge, mentoring etc... and code and architectural simplicity are a given for someone who's 10x productive. Most of the costs are in maintenance not the initial delivery and a 10xer's out…
This here. I think the author is confusing what a 10x developer is.
I took the 10x dev to mean somebody who may work efficiently but also improves all of the devs around them. Improving yourself by 2x is one thing but improving the team around you by 2x is where you get the 10x.
Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth
#25The original study (if I remember correctly) showed a 10x productivity difference between the most and least productive students on a given task. I find that very plausible. In real world settings the difference might be much larger, since some developers effectively have zero or negative productivity.
This article talks about a developer with consistently 10x productivity compared to the average developers in an organization. I think this is pretty rare. And I would consider it a warning signal. It means that either the average is really low or the hero is really a one-of-kind genius which will likely move on to a different job quickly (or get hit by a bus, per Murphys Law).
It could also indicate (as per the article) that the 10x developer is actually keeping the other developers down, e.g. by insufficient knowledge sharing or writing unmaintainable code. You often see this if the 10x developers is "the old guy" who develops at night and hates meetings of any kind. Removing this guy will cause an immediate hit, but over time increase the productivity of the remaining developers.
Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth
#26Doesn't really bust the myth, though does it? Just says that the 10x engineer is a sign that the company may be in trouble, depending too heavily in such engineers.
From 25 years in electronic engineering, I guarantee that there are some engineers that are 5x or 10x others.
Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth
#27Very sf-type of term, is it still in use? From an eu perspective the idea to rely on some members of your team to be 10 times more productive than others seems like a terrible idea for anything longer than a 1 month sprint. That's not to say people's raw smartness, competence and experiences are the same just that a better focus would be growing the team as a whole.
> From an eu perspective the idea to rely on some members of your team to be 10 times more productive than others seems like a terrible idea
It's just less socially acceptable to say it out loud, doesn't make it any less true. If anything, 10 is a conservative estimation: the spectrum spans orders of magnitude.
> a better focus would be growing the team as a whole
Not mutually exclusive. Prima donna behavior is always inexcusable. If you can't work with others you're not 10x, you're 0x.
Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth
#28I know "10x engineers" exist; some people are fakes and put forward things that look like they have high impact but are actually a bit shoddy. Some people like to be present and suck up. But some people really do just work hard, smart and have deep passion for what they're doing- and importantly: pride, which makes the quality of the content great too. Some of the best engineers I know "visit" bits of code or infrast…
If we're taking about is just output on a larger macro scale, then yes, hiring enough people will replace 10x engineers. But some things i think you won't be able to replace -- You won't be able to replace speed on short-term projects. Lots of people means lots of communication overhead, which really kills fast responsive speed. If you value time to answer, you'd prefer a small team of really smart people instead of…
Just to give a concrete example: no amount of software engineers can be hired to produce comparable work of an expert cartoonist except by dumb luck. Throwing 1000 engineers won’t solve the problem.
I imagine within the tech world there are tasks that are ill defined and a small subset of engineers can solve, but a typical engineer may not have the background to solve it.
Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth
#29> Wrote hard-to-understand procedural code to 5000-line files. Did not actively share knowledge with his peers. The author seems to mean prima donna, not a 10x engineer and then goes on to destroy that strawman. Actively sharing knowledge, mentoring etc... and code and architectural simplicity are a given for someone who's 10x productive. Most of the costs are in maintenance not the initial delivery and a 10xer's out…
Indeed! Did he get time to "share knowledge with his peers". Would he have been credited for it? Would his position in the corporation have gotten more secure? In a U.S. corporation, the answer to all these questions is "no".
I strongly suspect those conditions are not confined to the US.
Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth
#30A 9x mother will give birth a baby in 1 month.