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The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

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Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#71

Post by aylmao »

trendia wrote: post #70
aylmao wrote: post #48

I know it's hyperbole and I'm being nit-picky but come on, 100x? 10x already sounds a bit like exaggeration, but implying there's an engineer out there who can do the same amount of work in 3-4 days as a normal engineer in a year is too much lol.

I can think of an example, though even this is somewhat of astretch: Suppose person A takes 40 hours to write C code to manipulate a large data set. Person B puts the data in a database and is able to write commands, which only take 10 minutes, to achieve roughly the same thing.

Oh, I can see this, ok. I've spent an hour or so googling and debugging something before asking someone who knows the answer and does it in like 30 seconds hahah.

Person A should've considered alternatives and asked around before spending a week on that manipulation lol.

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#72

Post by imh »

1) Can mods change the title to something not-clickbait, maybe even related to the content of the article? The author acknowledges it's trash and does it anyways, but we don't have to. Perhaps "The Webflow Tech Lead Guide"

2) Does anyone know of any data to support the 10x/100x idea? I hear it thrown around so much, but it's always struck me as an echo chamber kind of self affirmation to support questionable hiring practices and cop-outs.

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#73

Post by lfowles »

dfsegoat wrote: post #19

"Force multiplier" -- love that you borrowed this term from military doctrine, because that is exactly what a good tech lead is IMO. Per the Wiki definition [0]: "Force multiplication or a force multiplier refers to a factor or a combination of factors that dramatically increases (hence "multiplies") the effectiveness of an item or group, giving a given number of troops (or other personnel) or weapons (or other hardw…

Interesting, I didn't realize the term was so strongly associated with military doctrine. Just assumed it was a glorified way of referring to simple machines such as levers.

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#75

Post by shanghaiaway »

dasil003 wrote: post #68
tboyd47 wrote: post #17

> The Tech Lead is a “hybrid” role with one foot in management and the other in engineering I may have a limited experience but I've never seen an effective Tech Lead who was a hybrid like this and I have serious doubts it's even possible. The amount of time these tech leads spend coding necessarily expands and consumes the time they have available for management. The type of "management" they do then becomes more de…

Counterpoint: I've made a 20-year career out of doing exactly this role, and it's been great for my career and for my teams. For me it's just another level of the specialization question. Just like being a specialist in some hot field will get you outsized compensation from a Google or an Amazon, it will also make you struggle in environments where you have to wear more hats. If you want to remain a pure IC and move…

Interesting. Do you have any more write ups on this published?

Also, I love MUBI.

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#76

Post by acconrad »

I really don't understand what the difference is between tech lead and engineering manager after reading this article. I did exactly these things and also people management as an EM but I spent 75% coding/code review and 25% in meetings/one-on-ones. 30% seems awfully low for a tech lead; is this just like a new term that's been recently birthed in job descriptions? It seems like it's for companies that are too small to have principal software engineers/architects and also too small to have a management track, but they have EMs at Webflow so I'm really curious what the author does in his day-to-day.

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#77

Post by hinkley »

mykull wrote: post #2

I really don't think coining the term 10x did anything to help developers or the state of development, and likewise here.

I’ve known developers who couldn’t do certain hard tasks no matter how long you gave them.

That fact notwithstanding, I’ve never met someone more than 4x faster than anyone I would consider adequate. Maybe that says I have demanding standards (likely). Maybe that means I’ve never been in the presence of great developers (less likely).

What I have met is people who value their own productivity over that of the team. They create code that slows all but themselves down. The more clever the person the worse the damage. I have no doubt that such a one could force a situation with a ten to one ratio, especially with developers without the self esteem to push back.

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#78

Post by joejerryronnie »

megamindbrian2 wrote: post #67

The only "work that matters" is growing food and service people. The rest of this up and coming technology bubble is hubris.

Yes, but we also need soldiers to keep other soldiers from taking the food. And stone keeps and villages with market places to trade food for goods. And better farming techniques to increase our food production. Also, some more advanced machines to allow better food processing and some textiles. We probably need something a little more efficient than water or steam power. And logistics! Definitely need a way to get people and goods from one place to another. At some point, we'll need to organize all this activity better and start to specialize. Maybe there's a better way to track all this stuff than manual ledgers. Wait, we can leverage electricity and simple lever machines (up/down or 0/1 if you will) for tracking this stuff. Perhaps if we connected all these machines together into some kind of a network . . .

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#79

Post by esturk »

aylmao wrote: post #48

I know it's hyperbole and I'm being nit-picky but come on, 100x? 10x already sounds a bit like exaggeration, but implying there's an engineer out there who can do the same amount of work in 3-4 days as a normal engineer in a year is too much lol.

100x'ers do exist. But by Lokta's Law, they occur about 1 in 10000. Usually, a 10x'er is only 1/100 so they are much easier to find. You probably know them as Fellow/Staff Engineers.
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