Just take a look at big tech salaries on levels.fyi. Very senior engineers (L8/L9) easily make 10x the salary of entry to mid-level engineers (L3/L4/L5). For a lot of tech companies, L5 is a terminal level meaning most engineers will spend the rest of their careers there. Clearly the market thinks 10x engineers exist.
10x (engineer, context) pairs
51–60 of 132 posts
Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs
#52Yeah, 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…
i think the major advantage is much more rooted in general problem solving ability
familiarity might be able to give you 1-2x edge but 10x+ comes from raw problem solving skill and research aptitude
Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs
#53"10x engineer" is a signpost that means "run away fast" if I see it in job posts or from leadership.
Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs
#54Why does this 10x meme exist about software engineers and no other profession? It's because the CEOs and VCs who spread this are preying on tech bro macho-ness so they can squeeze as much labor and "productivity" out of us as possible. Let's stop with this juvenile dick measuring contest. We are not machines that have a speed that can be so easily measured like a new CPU in the bosses computer.
The "meme" exists because many of us have worked with engineers that are shockingly productive, and can write better code, faster than almost everyone else. Code that sticks around for 5-10+ years because it works well.
There's nothing juvenile about the observation that some people (and very few) are gifted with an order-of-magnitude stronger programming skills.
Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs
#55Ffs, the claim is that the great engineers are 10x better than the worst engineers. Stop asking if 10x engineers exist and ask if some engineers are only 1x of the best. I've worked with people who spend months on a story that I can do in 3 days. I've seen engineers so bad that they provide negative value with all the time they suck from others. 10x is an understatement.
Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
i think the major advantage is much more rooted in general problem solving ability familiarity might be able to give you 1-2x edge but 10x+ comes from raw problem solving skill and research aptitude
How do you build this raw, generically-applicable problem solving skill? Everything I come across ends up being frameworks for probables specific to a discipline.
Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
I think what the parent meant was that “true” 10x engineers can apply their skills to a wide variety of problems, and it isn’t just applicable to a narrow problem domain and/or for a very short period. This makes clear he isn’t talking someone who just happens to be specialized in a specific codebase or one specific problem, for example.
Most companies won’t have structure to accommodate such generalists anyway so they will get pissed or bored and quit so you probably should look for “fake” ones then.
Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs
#58I'm not quite sold on the first bullet point that if the impact of your company/project is 10x, then you are a 10x engineer. 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 i…
you’re not making the right comparison. The right comparison would be within the same org. Is there someone on your team that generates $1M per week? Then they’re 10x you. Or does everyone else generate $10k per week? Then you’re 10x them.
That's exactly my point. The comparison is not mine, but from the article.
> but my work at Sendwave led to saving well over 10x more money, because the scale of the product was bigger and the improvements I was making were more important.
Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've found different. 10x engineers differentiate with normal people by lacking brain fog. They see solutions with utter clarity, sharpness and speed. This is very different from originality. They are just able to see the most logical solution while most engineers have to wander through fog to find it and many times they just can't peer past the fog to see it. This may appear like it's originality but it is not. The…
Are you sure it's intelligence? The great engineers I know have done it all before. They've worked on similar problems. They're not really breaking new territory. I think this is where being 'prolific' matters. Beethoven was a genius, but it makes no difference that he was smart if he didn't spend years and years just 'writing' music, transposing, experimenting etc.. That's the advice big composers give today i.e. 'y…
Quickly like, at 10x normal speed?
Re: 10x (engineer, context) pairs
#60Yeah, 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 main personality traits that are associated with being not nice:
1. Being a know-it-all
2. Unwilling to admit mistakes
3. Not collaborative
4. Not sharing knowledge
5. Unwilling to be coached
There are many more. These “not nice” traits are the same ones that will lead to stunting your growth as a software engineer.