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“Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

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Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#501

Post by ngneer »

Swizec wrote: post #417
Aeolun wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Business constraints make it feel much more interesting than writing code in a vacuum. You never write code in a vacuum do you? You always have some kind of goal.

I don’t know dude, this one time I wrote a LOLCODE compiler into a Babel macro. https://swizec.com/blog/lolcodetojavascript-compiler-babel-m... It was pretty fun. Also this other time I wrote a nodejs script to keep my computer at a specific temperature because our office fridge kept freezing my carrots. https://swizec.com/blog/i-built-a-node-app-to-thaw-my-favori...

That's quite nice! You may wish to look into implementing a PID controller, so as to avoid overshoot (your carrots become too thawed initially) and unnecessary oscillation about the setpoint (meaning you are wasting energy on cooling and heating cycles that in the end cancel each other out, where you could have kept the temperature nearly constant during that time). I loved juicing carrots so much my face turned orange from the beta-carotene.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#502

Post by lolinder »

dilyevsky wrote: post #449
breadwinner wrote: post #406

The flaw in this article is the assumption that 10x engineers are just more productive, and several "normal engineers" can do the work of a 10x engineer. This may be true if you're building "normal software". But for certain kinds of software development, a team of "normal engineers" can't do what a single 10x engineer can do. For example, how many "normal engineers" would you need to replace an Ilya Sutskever? The a…

The key sentence in article imo: > We place too much emphasis on individual agency and characteristics, and not enough on the systems that shape us and inform our behaviors. This is just author trying to impose their personal politics on their org. Popular sentiment among pmc unfortunately especially in the last 10 years of zirp

Systems thinking isn't a political belief, it's a model for the world that is incredibly useful in a lot of contexts. Some political factions may be more likely to engage in systems thinking than others, but that doesn't make it a political topic.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#503

Post by tester756 »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #117

I could not disagree more with nearly everything in this article. Individuals ship software not teams, unless you are pair programming. Nearly all complex technical projects are owned by one super smart person (Ex: linux). You don't need to have a scientific measurement of productivity to know that in your median team of 12 there really are 2 people carrying the water for everyone else. A players hire A players, B pl…

>Nearly all complex technical projects are owned by one super smart person (Ex: linux).

LoL?

By that logic CEOs are super humans too, cuz they own the companies? :D

>A players hire A players, B players hire C players etc

Where did you hear it?

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#504

Post by beryilma »

deadfoxygrandpa wrote: post #402
noosphr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is different. All other engineering disciplines are ultimately limited to building things in (at most) 3 euclidean dimensions. There is only so much junk you can hide in a finite volume of space. Code by comparison lives in hyperbolic space [0] and you can hide _anything_ in such a space without it being obvious. This is exemplified by the unpleasant discovery all of us have had of a supposedly peripheral fo…

actually, if you really think about it, my source code is only laid out in 2 dimensions. thats even fewer than mechanical engineers have to work with!

One might even argue that a Turing Machine (computers) is really one dimensional.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#505

Post by breadwinner »

chatmasta wrote: post #466
breadwinner wrote: post #406

The flaw in this article is the assumption that 10x engineers are just more productive, and several "normal engineers" can do the work of a 10x engineer. This may be true if you're building "normal software". But for certain kinds of software development, a team of "normal engineers" can't do what a single 10x engineer can do. For example, how many "normal engineers" would you need to replace an Ilya Sutskever? The a…

Intelligence is the easy part. That’s not what makes a 10x engineer. The 10x comes from consistency, persistence, creativity, resourcefulness, patience, focus, communication, drive, empathy, and a bunch of other traits that are rarely found all together in a single individual.

No, intelligence is not the easy part. We are talking about uncommon intelligence and it is the hard part. And they ones that have it are often lacking in other areas, such as social skills. And the ones that have social skills, and other traits often aren't 10x.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#506

Post by greazy »

breadwinner wrote: post #406

The flaw in this article is the assumption that 10x engineers are just more productive, and several "normal engineers" can do the work of a 10x engineer. This may be true if you're building "normal software". But for certain kinds of software development, a team of "normal engineers" can't do what a single 10x engineer can do. For example, how many "normal engineers" would you need to replace an Ilya Sutskever? The a…

> For example, how many "normal engineers" would you need to replace an Ilya Sutskever?

I wonder what Sutskever would think if you asked him that question. I bet he'd point out several of his contemporaries that are more deserving of praise.

I'd argue there are plenty of Sutskever's out there who are normal engineers.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#507

Post by nomel »

bloomingkales wrote: post #68
beastman82 wrote: post #14

Every 10x engineer I've known has carried entire teams of normal engineers. ymmv but I've seen probably 5 instances of this and 0 instances of teams of normal engineers being super productive.

What are the details of this? Any engineer that built most of the stuff is not a 10x engineer. It's someone that really knows their way around their own house.

> Any engineer that built most of the stuff is not a 10x engineer. It's someone that really knows their way around their own house.

How can you meaningfully separate these?

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#508

Post by dilyevsky »

lolinder wrote: post #502
dilyevsky wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key sentence in article imo: > We place too much emphasis on individual agency and characteristics, and not enough on the systems that shape us and inform our behaviors. This is just author trying to impose their personal politics on their org. Popular sentiment among pmc unfortunately especially in the last 10 years of zirp

Systems thinking isn't a political belief, it's a model for the world that is incredibly useful in a lot of contexts. Some political factions may be more likely to engage in systems thinking than others, but that doesn't make it a political topic.

I dont see much systems thinking applied here given what follows this sentence

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#509

Post by chatmasta »

breadwinner wrote: post #505
chatmasta wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intelligence is the easy part. That’s not what makes a 10x engineer. The 10x comes from consistency, persistence, creativity, resourcefulness, patience, focus, communication, drive, empathy, and a bunch of other traits that are rarely found all together in a single individual.

No, intelligence is not the easy part. We are talking about uncommon intelligence and it is the hard part. And they ones that have it are often lacking in other areas, such as social skills. And the ones that have social skills, and other traits often aren't 10x.

Put it this way: of the handful of 10x engineers I’ve met in my life, it was never intelligence that was the differentiator or what impressed me. That’s a commodity as far as I’m concerned. Once you pass 140 IQ it’s mostly diminishing returns, compared to the outsized impact of the other dimensions. It’s always been the persistence and consistency that has stood out the most to me.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#510

Post by TZubiri »

soulofmischief wrote: post #495
TZubiri wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the warzone will be the final judge, no doubt, this is just cheap talk. > a real 10x engineer is an even temperament and a lack of arrogance Super subjective, but I see the 10x engineer as being arrogant, you have got to if you are really 10 times above your peers. Although it's true that some arrogance might come from a place of insecurity. Someone who is truly leagues above someone else will not berate them f…

You're confusing confidence and arrogance. Confidence can be misplaced, or maybe hard-won through experience. But arrogance never has a place in a team. If you go around thinking you're 10x better than your peers, you're massively selling yourself short and I can bet you the rest of the engineers do not feel the same way about you. > Pointing out how the other is worse and they are better is argumentative, which usua…

You are correct in that there are conflicting views, which is why I used the 'although' connector.

I don't have it all figured out and I might use these posts to think aloud rather than espouse a consistent message

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