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Busting the 10x software engineer myth

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Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#291

Post by Jensson »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #288
latch wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree, but I think you can use examples closer to home. Carmack could build a video games which is 100x across a number of metrics (quality, cost, time to deliver) than I could. Still too far? Pick your field, there'll be experts. You can get even closer to home. After 20 year, I really feel like I'm at least 10x developer across a number of metrics (e.g., value to my employer, amount of complexity I can ma…

Your case of Carmack is illustrative. To achieve 100x, consider what he was doing: - writing a first person shooter (Castle Wolfenstein 3d) - writing a first person shooter (Doom) - writing a first person shooter (Quake) ... you get the idea. Now, there was enormous leaps in maximal utilitilization of hardware, but do you notice a pattern? The requirements are basically fixed. Most 10x I've achieved in a short fashio…

Commander Keen was the first side scrolling platformer for PC (side scrolling was hardware accelerated on consoles, so PC games didn't have it before this) and released 1991. Wolfenstein 3d was the first fps and released 1992. Both of those were revolutionary and combined is more than enough to put him way above most other game programmers at the time.

And you know, at the time he didn't have any experience! That was his first few years as a professional programmer! So your hypothesis that he was only effective since he worked in a domain he had tons of experience in is wrong! He had less experience than most other programmers but was way more effective in many different areas.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#292

Post by corpMaverick »

A 10x Software Engineer is not somebody that can write programs 10 times faster. A 10x SE can solve problems that are 10x more complex. Because a 10x SE has a higher understanding and is able make design simplications and create better abstractions that allows her to not get lost on the complexity.

Case in point. I have similar years of experience as Linus Torvalds and feel I am pretty good SE, but I couldn't have written git. Because his understanding is in a different level. I am able to understand how git works, but he was able to come up with the concept. I was happily using subversion but he knew what needed to be different and how to implement it. It is just another level.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#293

Post by jjav »

bjourne wrote: post #97

This article is pure clickbait written to sell in this stupid Swarmia startup. :) 10x developers exist just like 10x musicians, 10x marathon runners, or 10x chess players exist. It may take a world-class musician a week to write a masterful symphony but it would take me way longer. Perhaps I'd never produce anything great so that musician would be infinitely better at it than me. Great chess players beat amateurs at…

> It may take a world-class musician a week to write a masterful symphony but it would take me way longer.

But are you a world-class musician yourself?

Yeah it would probably take me a week to run a marathon, but I've never run anything so it's not a meaningul comparison.

In all your examples you're comparing amateurs or even non-participants vs. the top professionals. Of course there is a huge multiplier, up to sometimes infinity.

That's not the typical usage of "10x developer" though. The baseline comparison isn't random person on the street who is not a developer. The comparison is other professional developers who are gainfully employed in the field.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#294

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Jensson wrote: post #291
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your case of Carmack is illustrative. To achieve 100x, consider what he was doing: - writing a first person shooter (Castle Wolfenstein 3d) - writing a first person shooter (Doom) - writing a first person shooter (Quake) ... you get the idea. Now, there was enormous leaps in maximal utilitilization of hardware, but do you notice a pattern? The requirements are basically fixed. Most 10x I've achieved in a short fashio…

Commander Keen was the first side scrolling platformer for PC (side scrolling was hardware accelerated on consoles, so PC games didn't have it before this) and released 1991. Wolfenstein 3d was the first fps and released 1992. Both of those were revolutionary and combined is more than enough to put him way above most other game programmers at the time. And you know, at the time he didn't have any experience! That was…

Side scrollers have existed since the Apple II on "PCs". I highly doubt that 1991 was the first side scroller on ibm pc.

Wolfenstein was not the first 3d fps on ibmpc, and certainly not in "PC" land. Skyfox existed on the Apple II, and battlezone likely was ported at some point.

Carmack was fantastic, but again his "requirements" are static and he is a dev team of one.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#295

Post by denton-scratch »

jahewson wrote: post #278
denton-scratch wrote: post #276

Ari-Pekka makes various plausible-sounding declarations, but he doesn't even try to make a case. I know that I've had many colleagues that were next to useless - even, possibly, exhibiting negative utility. Let's just give that kind a zero. Then there are novices - smart people with little experience. They can get stuff done, but they need watching. Suppose we give those a 1. And suppose we give an "average" dev, fai…

The 10x is in comparison to the least productive engineer. In your model they get a zero so you actually have infinity x. Score your zero up slightly to 0.2 and a 10x is now a 2. It’s not so drastic a claim really. The common misinterpretation is that it’s 10x the average.

Well, yes, I was thinking the same way.

But I'm aware that many of those I've rated zero are actually something negative, as in "Please stop writing code" (I was trying to be generous). I'm thinking of people with personality defects, who are also novice coders, who also think they're God's gift, and therefore won't take advice.

So the score is a continuum, and there are negative (and zero) values. If that conflicts with the "x10" concept, then I'm not unhappy.

I'm also conscious of the notion that some super-clever people can unexpectedly wreck an organisation or team, instead of sparking it off. It's not insane to think of a -x4 dev. Very smart, but anyone picking up his work has a mountain to climb.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#296

Post by peoplefromibiza »

Jensson wrote: post #250
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is he wasn't when he worked with Jobs. Carmack is exceptional, not just 10x, but how many above average people work with a Steve Jobs and can't prove it and do not even realize it? Carmack is not an actual good benchmark here, but even as good as he is, he met his kryptonite Don't assume that great workers will perform great in every condition, because that's not a realistic assumption and only puts pressur…

"worked with Jobs" What are you talking about, John Carmack never worked directly with Steve Jobs? He had his own company and he sometimes had to talk with Apple as a platform vendor, but they never worked together on a title. He didn't like Jobs as a person but that is another story.

Carmack literally talks about working WITH Jobs, but random HN user says he didn't.

OK!

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#297

Post by denton-scratch »

Jensson wrote: post #282
denton-scratch wrote: post #276

Ari-Pekka makes various plausible-sounding declarations, but he doesn't even try to make a case. I know that I've had many colleagues that were next to useless - even, possibly, exhibiting negative utility. Let's just give that kind a zero. Then there are novices - smart people with little experience. They can get stuff done, but they need watching. Suppose we give those a 1. And suppose we give an "average" dev, fai…

> Software development is a process of discovering and remedying bugs - from the requirements, through the design, to the implementation The fastest developers are those who barely put in bugs in the first place not those who are good at finding the bugs they themselves put in. Example: Two developers writes half of a project. Developer A's code has 10 bugs, developer B's code has 1 bug. They both work together to fi…

I don't like your example.

Dev B had a much richer target-environment than A.

And I don't agree that fixing other people's bugs is harder than fixing your own. It's human nature to be blind to your own mistakes.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#298

Post by smlss_sftwr »

10x engineers most certainly exist, I've had the fortune of being able to work with a few and their true impact isn't in the code they themselves write but in the higher-level strategic/architectural decisions they make that impact the team as a whole. That being said it is also my experience that most self-described 10x engineers are anything but, so if one bases their impression of 10x engineers off those self-promoting cases then I can see how it would appear to be a myth

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#299

Post by daniel-cussen »

bjourne wrote: post #97

This article is pure clickbait written to sell in this stupid Swarmia startup. :) 10x developers exist just like 10x musicians, 10x marathon runners, or 10x chess players exist. It may take a world-class musician a week to write a masterful symphony but it would take me way longer. Perhaps I'd never produce anything great so that musician would be infinitely better at it than me. Great chess players beat amateurs at…

> Great chess players beat amateurs at least 99 times out of 100 so must also be 10x in comparison.

Absolutely. Chess is very hierarchical. I would say true amateurs will literally never beat a grandmaster, and high school champion-level (not prodigies though) can only beat a grandmaster if the grandmaster plays very weakly (vastly underestimating them, not truly playing their best, or having their guard really, really down).

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#300

Post by Jensson »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #296
Jensson wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"worked with Jobs" What are you talking about, John Carmack never worked directly with Steve Jobs? He had his own company and he sometimes had to talk with Apple as a platform vendor, but they never worked together on a title. He didn't like Jobs as a person but that is another story.

Carmack literally talks about working WITH Jobs, but random HN user says he didn't. OK!

John Carmack ran a video game company. Steve Jobs ran a platform, the Apple. Therefore John Carmack sometimes talked to Steve Jobs about things he needed from the Apple platform. John Carmack had a very negative experience in those interactions, yes. But John Carmack never worked with Steve Jobs on any project. Steve Jobs was never the boss of John Carmack.

If you disagree please link an article where it says that they did work together on anything and that during that project John Carmack's performance was significantly reduced. I haven't found such an article, and it would be strange since they never worked at the same company.

That he did a few keynotes at Apple isn't really working together. And him refusing to take a keynote that would force him to reschedule his wedding is just him being healthy and Steve Jobs being an ass, I'd say that is evidence that Steve Jobs didn't really have any power over him.

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