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10x (engineer, context) pairs

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Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#31

Post by MisterBastahrd »

One needs to be careful of that term in general.

Once upon a time, I was tasked with creating a new social media api based off of existing work by our "rockstar engineer." This is a guy who spend every single free second reading Code Complete and Code and Programming Pearls and seemed to have injected Design Patterns directly into his veins.

The last time he created a new API based off of his existing work, it took him about 2 days. I had zero experience with it, so it took me a little over 3. He was a person who was very proud of his work and declared that there was no reason for me to take that long to implement the new code.

The code review process at the company has a lot to be desired, and he being the "rockstar," basically got his code handwaved through by our CTO, who was filling in as our last manager had taken another position. Deciding I had enough, I went to the new manager who had no inkling of this dev's reputation and asked him to code review the original commit to the base social API with me for real this time. I asked him to keep in mind that other devs were going to have to build their work based off of this base system. It was a convoluted, entirely over-engineered pile of crap. A wankfest masquerading as code.

See, I read and was familiar with all of the books that sat proudly displayed in his cubicle. But there's a time and a place for everything, and the only 10x about this guy was the amount of unnecessary code he produced in order to do something as simple as interfacing with Facebook.

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#32

Post by goodpoint »

kleinsch wrote: post #2

I feel like we discuss this once a week/month and it always breaks down to the same things bc of the number 10. - Yes, some engs write code faster than others. 10x seems really high, so therefore 10x engs don't exist. - Yes, some engs are more productive / pick better problems to solve / force multiply their teammates, but 10x seems pretty high, so 10x engs don't exist. If we hadn't anchored on 10, we wouldn't be dis…

10x is a big multiplier, but I met plenty of developers that would write 5x the amount of code compared to others, in the same time, and to solve the same problem.

Now, is that a good or a bad thing?

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#33

Post by psyc »

lostdog wrote: post #4

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…

So have I. And that’s why this tiresome perennial argument will never die. You’ve either worked with one and seen fit to give them due credit, or only the first, or neither. And yes the ones I’ve worked with have also been helpful, humble, and kind.

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#34

Post by jollybean »

Often overlooked is just the breadth of experience and insight aka 'Technical Wisdom'.

It took 5 years of various clusterf**s with Unicode, but now whenever I approach it, I have an intuition for the cost of string manipulation, UTF8 v 16, what's pragmatic, what is needed, what is 'overdoing it'.

It's like building a deck - after you build 100 of them 'all the little details' become instinct.

So if you can do that across all sorts of technologies ... then you just walk through stuff like butter.

Whenever I see someone whip through something, I'm not amazed so much by talent or genius, but how they 'know so much'.

It's like the academic who's read literally 1000 books and remembers a lot of it.

Whether they are 10x or not really depends.

Some architectural decisions make a 10x difference.

Some business related decisions also make a difference.

Sometimes it's not apparent until later, or never apparent.

And sometimes it doesn't matter that much.

Finally - I'll say that 'speed of execution' is not remotely the issue. If someone can saunter along at a reasonable pace but actually produce the 'correct thing' - that's worth it's weight in gold right there.

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#36

Post by stephc_int13 »

The difference between exceptional and average programmers is not something special. It can been seen in all creative fields.

The important factor is not speed but output.

Some people can do things that almost everyone else would consider impossible.

Having even a single one of those in your company can be the most important factor of success.

Fabrice Bellard https://bellard.org/ and Justine Tunney https://justine.lol/ are good examples of this kind of people, but there are of course many others.

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#37

Post by khazhoux »

I contend that the only reason their existence is debated or controversial, is because the concept hurts the pride of those who like to think of themselves as best-of-the-best engineers, but are afraid they're really not.

I've worked with 10x engineers maybe 2-3 times in 20 years. One single-handedly wrote 85% of and another wrote most of the internal libraries at . They would regularly take tasks that most people would take a month+ to do, and just knock it out in a couple of days -- over and over.

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#38

Post by dilyevsky »

lostdog wrote: post #4

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…

> there are plenty of fake 10x engineers out there, or temporary 10x-ers who are only doing well because of their working environment.

Isn’t that just really obvious truism that someone who is hyper specialized and really good in one area say video codecs is probably not a 10x’er in frontend dev? Doesn’t make it fake, still a jackpot as far as employers and probably coworkers are concerned. Unless you’re someone like like Fabrice Bellard but he’s more like a 1000x’er so probably still be better than most at anything programming related

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#39

Post by here4funzies »

lostdog wrote: post #4

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…

I'm 10X if I do everything by hand with only efficient and natively supported abstractions. If you ask me to use the latest trendy framework, I go back to 1x or 0.5X.

Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs

#40

Post by cokeandpepsi »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #27
GrumpyNl wrote: post #5

it has to do with the organization to. As soon as they start with Jira and Scrum, your productivity goes down the drain.

What's wrong with Jira? I've found it very helpful in tracking progress and sharing information for problems involving many people in different teams.

I've worked at companies that moved quickly using jira and companies that we're bogged down using jira

the key difference I've noticed is that the slower the companies move the more obsessed they become with their tools adding piles upon piles of ceremony and requirements I guess jira helps folks do that but that's the case for almost any tool tbh

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