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10x Engineer

medium.com

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Re: 10x Engineer

#81

Post by cia_plant »

tdees40 wrote: post #49

I think the free market mostly answers this question. According to indeed.com, the average software engineer salary is $91K. So obviously a company (assuming they could properly identify them) would pay $910K/year to a 10x programmer. Are there people out there making that for pure coding (i.e. not management)? Maybe, but it seems doubtful. I would think that generally 99.9999% of programmers make less than $400K if…

Acqui-hires are basically, companies paying multiples of standard salary for exceptional programmers.

Re: 10x Engineer

#82

Post by pekk »

tutacano wrote: post #71

A 10x engineer is not an engineer who works 10x as hard or fast, but someone who knows what to focus on and as result comes up with more elegant solutions.

Then why the magic number 10?

Re: 10x Engineer

#83

Post by chris_mahan »

com2kid wrote: post #60

I have known developers who, given a moderately complex programming task, will complete it within a reasonable amount of time. The code will be correct with no more than the expected bugs, and the design will be OK as a stand alone piece of code. The design will not be ingenious. It will not take other parts of the system into account. It will not have simple tweaks done in preparation of future design change request…

YAGNI is a virtue. Make to code loosely coupled so the system can be modified in-place when the time come rather than building features that may not be needed in the future.

Re: 10x Engineer

#84

Post by meshko »

You can argue with anything if you reduce it to a ridiculously absolutist statement. But the bottom line is that there is a significant gap between the top 1% developer and average "let's see if I can google some code that does that" developer. Is it 10X? Who knows, no sane person can claim to being able to measure that exactly.

Re: 10x Engineer

#85

Post by [deleted] »

philbo wrote: post #25

Even if the 10x engineer were to exist, assuming a normal distribution, they would be extremely rare and highly sought after. To optimise your business around hiring such a precious unicorn would seem like a very foolhardy strategy. For one, simple probability suggests that you probably won't find one. And if you were to find one, could you be certain that it were a real unicorn rather than a horse with a plastic con…

[deleted]

Re: 10x Engineer

#86

Post by gvr »

mathattack wrote: post #78
jandrewrogers wrote: post #24

While the article correctly highlights the lack of rigorous scientific studies on 10x engineers, it also generalizes a bit too much from anecdote to make the argument that they are mythical creatures. A more reasonable argument is that the hypothetical existence of 10x engineers explains little about the productivity of most organizations. Personally, in the couple decades I have been in this business working in coun…

I feel obliged to toss in Joel's commentary... http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html His commentary about "hitting the high notes" was new to me. It isn't just that 10x people are faster and make less mistakes, they also can do things that others can't. This doesn't mean that you have to ignore culture, and tolerate bad behavior. But it does mean that in software it is worth the effort and cost to cha…

This resonated with me. If the programming tasks are somewhat mechanical/procedural, I am not sure that an exceptional engineer can create 10x as much value as a quite good one. I've never seen it.

What I've seen several times are engineers that are able to tackle problems that require so much creativity or skill that giving them to a less qualified engineer would most likely be a waste of everyone's time. In instances like that there can be a 10x difference in the value created by a quite good and an exceptional engineer. I've seen it in the static analysis software domain.

Re: 10x Engineer

#87

Post by clavalle »

>It over-focuses on the role of the individual and individual contribution in success, reinforcing Silicon Valley’s tendency towards hero worship, elitism and destructive individualism while ignoring the context of situation and privilege.

It correctly focuses on people that get stuff done. End of story. Some people drift and others paddle, simple as that. It is valuable to be able to tell the difference.

>It can provide a cover for destructive and abusive behavior by the “10x engineer”

Whole. Separate. Issue. Being productive has zero to do with being a jerk or not. People might tolerate jerks if they are productive, but that is a value calculation. People also tolerate poor public speaking or being chronically late or any number of other deficiencies for the same reason. If a person creates value they have more leeway, in general. So what?

>It erases many of the essential team and cultural dynamics involved in true productivity.

True productivity? As opposed to what? Productivity is productivity. This post assumes people are too stupid to calculate the long term effects of behavior and its relationship to productivity over time or to the output of the work group.

I think this post is trying to create an argument where none exists.

Re: 10x Engineer

#88

Post by umeshunni »

tdees40 wrote: post #49

I think the free market mostly answers this question. According to indeed.com, the average software engineer salary is $91K. So obviously a company (assuming they could properly identify them) would pay $910K/year to a 10x programmer. Are there people out there making that for pure coding (i.e. not management)? Maybe, but it seems doubtful. I would think that generally 99.9999% of programmers make less than $400K if…

On the contrary, I've seen that options/equity is how the 10x programmers are compensated in most large companies. Everyone has a 100-200k base pay and the average programmers get 50k in options, whereas the 10x one gets 500k.

Re: 10x Engineer

#90

Post by blah32497 »

ColinDabritz wrote: post #28
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #8

One of the many problems with the 10x Engineer concept is that it imagines that skill is a single dimension, when in fact it depends massively on context, environment, and the specifics of individual experience and the problem at hand. I am definitely not a 10x anything, but my group once got handed a massive data-processing task that my supervisors--better coders than me, to be sure--believed was impossible to autom…

Also related is the myth that "an engineer" is a fungible resource. They are not. It's not one problem space. You can't swap engineers around like that, you have to match skill sets and experience to the problems you're having, or build new skills.

There is a trade off. If you don't swap your people around then they become very one dimensional. Sometimes it better to put someone less experienced in an area on a project so that he gains perspective (ie. see all junior staff)
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