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Pick one of the following conjectures and argue both sides: a. There are no 10x engineers, just environments where there is a 10x discrepancy in productivity.
by braythwayt 11y ago
Pick one of the following conjectures and argue both sides:
a. There are no 10x engineers, just environments where there is a 10x discrepancy in productivity.
b. There are no 10x engineers, just 10x yardsticks.
c. There are no 10x engineers, but plenty of .1x engineers.
- StavrosK 11y agoC is self-contradicting. "10x engineer" means "an engineer that's ten times better than most others", and if most others are ten times worse than someone, then that person is a 10x engineer. Also, I hate the term "10x engineer". Everything follows a normal distribution.
- rewqfdsa 11y ago> Everything follows a normal distribution. Evidence suggests that technical talent is bimodal.
- danbruc 11y agoCan you back this up with some data? This might actually match my observations but I never considered the possibility that it might be a bimodal distribution.
- tamana 11y agoWhat evidence? There was a famous study by a college professor 10 years ago, but he retracted his research as flawed.
- tbrownaw 11y agoIs there anything more to that than just willingness to learn (like how some people will ignore the instructions and then demand help because "it doesn't work")?
- criley2 11y ago>Also, I hate the term "10x engineer". Everything follows a normal distribution. A normal distribution doesn't preclude the existence of a 10X, just describes the rarity.
- StavrosK 11y agoYes, and it's so well-understood that talking about whether 10x engineers do and don't exist is ridiculous. It seems like it's just a circlejerk, where everybody secretly thinks they're a 10x engineer so we keep talking about it.
- dwiel 11y agoIt doesnt even describe the rarity without a mean and standard deviation
- jasode 11y ago>Also, I hate the term "10x engineer" Even if people were to use a new term such as "3-Sigma Programmer" instead of "10X Programmer", the ensuing debates would still be the same. To make peace with the "10x" label, I suggest people just think of it as a figure-of-speech instead of a mathematical term. We don't get hung up when people say "Star Wars IV was ten times better than Phantom Menace" or "I'm not even 1/2 the football player I used to be."
- StavrosK 11y agoThen what are we arguing about? Whether there are people who are much better than other people? That's trivially true.
- braythwayt 11y agoWell, what if you don’t have “most others” being 10x worse than someone in general, but you have a few .1x engineers. If you put them all on the same team as a 1x engineer, there will be the perception that one engineer is 10x most programmers.
- banku_brougham 11y agoYes, absolutely everything follows a normal distribution. Everything.
- laxatives 11y agoNothing follows a normal distribution at the ends. Almost everything has fat tails.
- empthought 11y ago> Everything follows a normal distribution. Yes, this is why the 60 wealthiest people have as much wealth as half of the world combined.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- DonHopkins 11y agoIs 10x in binary or hex? The dial on a binary 10x engineer goes to 2. The dial on a hex 10x engineer goes to 16.
- pmelendez 11y ago> There are no 10x engineers, but plenty of .1x engineers. If there are plenty of 0.1x engineers, then an x engineer is actually 10 times better. The units doesn't matter if the ratio keeps being the same.
- ben174 11y agoI think that's kinda the point. It's saying the ratio is accurate, but it's not due to humans with some superpower. It's that there are many people in the field who underperform.
- braythwayt 11y agoThat’s true in a mathematical sense, but it’s not how some or possibly most brains work. For example, “plenty of .1x” engineers doesn’t have to imply a majority, it could be just enough that you run into them on a regular basis. If you were interviewing and on Monday you have a 1x engineer and 9 .1x engineers, you’d assert you met a 10x engineer. Then on Wednesday if you had 9 1x engineers and one .1x engineer, you’d assert you met a .1x engineer.
- jt2190 11y agoYes, and the actual 10x engineer will probably be compared to a 1x engineer who the organization currently considers their 10x engineer. This may cause the organization to reject the 10x engineer, simply because they don't know what a real 10x'er looks like.