21–30 of 132 posts
Yeah, there are plenty of fake 10x engineers out there, or temporary 10x-ers who are only doing well because of their working environment. But I have worked with a few people who were clear 10x engineers. Everything they worked on they did better and faster and cleaner. They could often solve problems that other skilled people couldn't even get started on. Yes, they usually picked important and impactful things to wo…
Yeah, there are plenty of fake 10x engineers out there, or temporary 10x-ers who are only doing well because of their working environment. But I have worked with a few people who were clear 10x engineers. Everything they worked on they did better and faster and cleaner. They could often solve problems that other skilled people couldn't even get started on. Yes, they usually picked important and impactful things to wo…
Next summer they tried to get him back but he was already at a large search engine company down in the Bay. Of course, he wouldn't return. That's when they realized a whole class of engineers were completely invisible to them; they lucked out hiring him that summer but there was no chance they could attract someone like him full time.
I have found the one distinction of 10x engineers is originality. They can write an original solution to a problem and be done. They don’t need a 1000 different tools to do their job for them, which has second and third order consequences. That also means not having a petrified terror of failure. Yes, there are 10x developers and this is measurable. It’s a progression of the Pareto Distribution. People scared shitles…
There are literally two different aspects of intelligence: "lack of brain fog" and creativity. Both aspects of intelligence are different and being strong in one doesn't necessarily mean you're weaker in the other. Lacking brain fog does help with creativity, but creativity is still an independent pillar.
Creativity and originality is actually less evident so it's less recognized. 90% of the 10xers you see are just super sharp, and they likely only have average or slightly above average creativity. Someone who has high skill in originality is much harder to recognize and their solutions are so novel that many times the solutions are ridiculed, unrecognized and dismissed.
Two famous people who excelled in these different aspects of intelligence are Von Neumann and Einstien. To quote someone who knew them both:
"I have known a great many intelligent people in my life. I knew Planck, von Laue and Heisenberg. Paul Dirac was my brother in law; Leo Szilard and Edward Teller have been among my closest friends; and Albert Einstein was a good friend, too. But none of them had a mind as quick and acute as Jancsi [John] von Neumann. I have often remarked this in the presence of those men and no one ever disputed.
But Einstein's understanding was deeper even than von Neumann's. His mind was both more penetrating and more original than von Neumann's. And that is a very remarkable statement. Einstein took an extraordinary pleasure in invention. Two of his greatest inventions are the Special and General Theories of Relativity; and for all of Jancsi's brilliance, he never produced anything as original."
I've talked to some of these people in depth and analyzed them. The difference with these people is incredible lack of brain fog. Everything is utterly clear for them. If you're a 10xer then this post characterizes the difference between you and others. It's not that other people are stupider, but there's a sort of brain fog that prevents people from seeing a solution. We sort of have to wander through a fog and look…
I'll preface this by saying I've been described as a 10x-er by others my whole career. I do not consider myself one but I've noticed that what people respond to is my ability to break down problem spaces into very small pieces and think about it in the abstract.
I also notice that this is what I see in folks that I consider are 10x-ers.
It's also not that I think others can't do that. That would be hubris. However I think it takes practice, and practice first requires self reflection.
I'm currently mentoring interns and juniors, and I am trying to teach them to approach problems with that kind of thinking. The ones who can shift into breaking things down like that, are able to chew through stuff much faster and cleaner.
coincidentally the system architects I've worked with who can think like this are always the strongest at creating scalable solutions and adapting to change.
A 2nd edition of Peopleware summarises it; the 10x programmer is not a myth, but it's comparing the best to the worst; NOT best to median. It's also not about programming specifically; it's simply a common distribution in many metrics of performance. The rule of thumb Peopleware states is that you can rely on the best outperforming the worst by a factor of 10, and you can rely on the best outperforming the median by…
A 2nd edition of Peopleware summarises it; the 10x programmer is not a myth, but it's comparing the best to the worst; NOT best to median. It's also not about programming specifically; it's simply a common distribution in many metrics of performance. The rule of thumb Peopleware states is that you can rely on the best outperforming the worst by a factor of 10, and you can rely on the best outperforming the median by…
it has to do with the organization to. As soon as they start with Jira and Scrum, your productivity goes down the drain.
Yeah, there are plenty of fake 10x engineers out there, or temporary 10x-ers who are only doing well because of their working environment. But I have worked with a few people who were clear 10x engineers. Everything they worked on they did better and faster and cleaner. They could often solve problems that other skilled people couldn't even get started on. Yes, they usually picked important and impactful things to wo…
Do they also get paid 10x?
Here is my case. In my previous (small) company we achieved a yearly revenue of ~1M eur. I was super proud that I directly contributed 10% of that revenue.
My current team in Big Tech generates millions of revenue per month. I could do a small improvement in a week and generate more than 100k in value.
Does that mean that I am 100x because my impact is 100x? is it even my achievement at all?
It's true that high performing engineers perform high leverage activities, but if we take it at face value then excellent engineers stuck in low value companies/products would be much worse than mediocre engineers working in high impact products.
Surely the answer is somewhere in between. Great engineers do the best with what they have available. Sometimes they might influence their environment to increase leverage but this isn't a given.
I never understood why this is controversial. I'd say the majority of engineers I've worked with have been 10x engineers. Maybe I've just been incredibly lucky with the teams I've ended up on.