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>Probably because they don't have the notion of a 10x programmer at all. I don't think the 10x programmer is a valid concept. If a company believes they can ea

>Probably because they don't have the notion of a 10x programmer at all. I don't think the 10x programmer is a valid concept. If a company believes they can easily replace you for that price, then chances are you aren't working on anything that that makes you irreplaceable. Why should an employer pay you more for the same amount of work? I also have reservations about looking at work as "an intimate family-like relationship". It's all families and sunshines until an investor pulls out and its time for layoffs.

themartorana 10y ago
Or, you know, until the company isn't profitable anymore. Sorry, your comment just struck me, that layoffs come with loss of investor capital, not in actual revenue and earnings declines.
vemv 10y ago
> chances are you aren't working on anything that that makes you irreplaceable. Or, they cannot really appreciate the quality or even the speed of my work. Clueless people abound. > I also have reservations about looking at work as "an intimate family-like relationship" You misread my original sentence - I'm with you on this one!
- MawNicker 10y ago
  > Or, they cannot really appreciate the quality or even the speed of my work. Clueless people abound. Many "10x programmers" aren't anywhere near 10x faster/better/etc in an environment full of 1x programmers. I think "exponential" would be a better description than 10x. If you watch them in the short term they look similar to the 1x programmers. If you distribute their exponential gains over the whole team then this will always be true. These types are like successful hedge fund managers in the domain of technical investment and debt. If you let them work alone long enough you'll start to see their foresight paying dividends.
  - hexagonc 10y ago
    I think you can easily be a 10x developer, since 10x is relative. Especially in a world awash in bad developers. Just being familiar with the right algorithms and software approaches vis-a-vis your co-workers will do that. I've seen "enterprise" code that was doing tons of string key-value pair lookups using arrays. Just converting those to hashtables could very well speed up the app by 10+ times if the key-value lookups were the bottleneck. I can imagine a poorly performing database program being sped up by 10 times just by having the right person refactor the code to use caching to avoid database reconnections. This is what I think of when I think of a 10x developer; they may not be literally 10x better but their code can be 10x faster or use 1/10th the memory or be 1/10 the size of competing developers.
    - MawNicker 10y ago
      > Especially in a world awash in bad developers. Your comment is totally reasonable. You're being down-voted because the sentiment of that statement is so negative but in some ways it's true. There is widespread encouragement from society for individuals to learn how to program. In the last 5 decades the group that operates primarily from this motivation has exploded. The much older fanatical nerd group (originating with Charles Babbage himself) has seen more modest growth. This latter group operates primarily from intrinsic motivation. They would have an earnest desire to achieve the improvements you've stated. Simply to see if they can. Their love for their craft and overall playful orientation eventually accumulates. They quickly familiarize themselves with the whole bag of tricks. They have wet dreams about things like binary search. You just can't compete with someone who loves what they do. The more monetary incentive there is to do something the more those people are few and far between. So yes, I agree that the phenomenon is relative and that it is so extreme (10x) mostly because so many developers are merely "good enough" (1x). I still think there's a lot to be said about how much an environment enables the expression of a 10x programmer. It is most common that "good enough" really is good enough and going extreme doesn't make anything better.
      - raarts 10y ago
        People with experience in the field have been telling me I am a very good programmer. I always compare myself to the car mechanic who holds a screwdriver to the engine, puts his ear on it, and immediately hears that the third valve needs replacement.
Retric 10y ago
You don't need to be irriplacable as long as the cost of replacement > your salary premium over some time period. A completely average developer making 1k over market is not replaceable for anywhere near 1k.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
The 10x thing happens all the time. What should happen is that a way for he 10x person to teach or otherwise influence the other members of the team should be in play, but constructing a robust set of incentives for that is difficult.
- jaggederest 10y ago
  Interesting article here: http://www.gigamonkeys.com/flowers/ http://www.gigamonkeys.com/flowers/ He talks about how you can allocate engineering effort to making other engineers more productive, among other subjects.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    $DEITY knows I have tried, but we all walk a different path. The only thing I like better than teaching is being taught. But both have a quantum of pain.
cageface 10y ago
I don't think there is such a thing as a 10x programmer if we're just talking about implementation. Where there is easily a 10x factor or more is making the right architectural decisions up front. An experienced dev can avoid making mistakes that can doom a project right out of the gate.
- Joeri 10y ago
  Another way to make an order of magnitude difference is to approach the problem from the 'why' perspective and come up with a different solution that is a lot less work.

themartorana 10y ago

Or, you know, until the company isn't profitable anymore. Sorry, your comment just struck me, that layoffs come with loss of investor capital, not in actual revenue and earnings declines.

vemv 10y ago

> chances are you aren't working on anything that that makes you irreplaceable. Or, they cannot really appreciate the quality or even the speed of my work. Clueless people abound. > I also have reservations about looking at work as "an intimate family-like relationship" You misread my original sentence - I'm with you on this one!

MawNicker 10y ago
> Or, they cannot really appreciate the quality or even the speed of my work. Clueless people abound. Many "10x programmers" aren't anywhere near 10x faster/better/etc in an environment full of 1x programmers. I think "exponential" would be a better description than 10x. If you watch them in the short term they look similar to the 1x programmers. If you distribute their exponential gains over the whole team then this will always be true. These types are like successful hedge fund managers in the domain of technical investment and debt. If you let them work alone long enough you'll start to see their foresight paying dividends.
- hexagonc 10y ago
  I think you can easily be a 10x developer, since 10x is relative. Especially in a world awash in bad developers. Just being familiar with the right algorithms and software approaches vis-a-vis your co-workers will do that. I've seen "enterprise" code that was doing tons of string key-value pair lookups using arrays. Just converting those to hashtables could very well speed up the app by 10+ times if the key-value lookups were the bottleneck. I can imagine a poorly performing database program being sped up by 10 times just by having the right person refactor the code to use caching to avoid database reconnections. This is what I think of when I think of a 10x developer; they may not be literally 10x better but their code can be 10x faster or use 1/10th the memory or be 1/10 the size of competing developers.
  - MawNicker 10y ago
    > Especially in a world awash in bad developers. Your comment is totally reasonable. You're being down-voted because the sentiment of that statement is so negative but in some ways it's true. There is widespread encouragement from society for individuals to learn how to program. In the last 5 decades the group that operates primarily from this motivation has exploded. The much older fanatical nerd group (originating with Charles Babbage himself) has seen more modest growth. This latter group operates primarily from intrinsic motivation. They would have an earnest desire to achieve the improvements you've stated. Simply to see if they can. Their love for their craft and overall playful orientation eventually accumulates. They quickly familiarize themselves with the whole bag of tricks. They have wet dreams about things like binary search. You just can't compete with someone who loves what they do. The more monetary incentive there is to do something the more those people are few and far between. So yes, I agree that the phenomenon is relative and that it is so extreme (10x) mostly because so many developers are merely "good enough" (1x). I still think there's a lot to be said about how much an environment enables the expression of a 10x programmer. It is most common that "good enough" really is good enough and going extreme doesn't make anything better.
    - raarts 10y ago
      People with experience in the field have been telling me I am a very good programmer. I always compare myself to the car mechanic who holds a screwdriver to the engine, puts his ear on it, and immediately hears that the third valve needs replacement.

Retric 10y ago

You don't need to be irriplacable as long as the cost of replacement > your salary premium over some time period. A completely average developer making 1k over market is not replaceable for anywhere near 1k.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

The 10x thing happens all the time. What should happen is that a way for he 10x person to teach or otherwise influence the other members of the team should be in play, but constructing a robust set of incentives for that is difficult.

jaggederest 10y ago
Interesting article here: http://www.gigamonkeys.com/flowers/ http://www.gigamonkeys.com/flowers/ He talks about how you can allocate engineering effort to making other engineers more productive, among other subjects.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  $DEITY knows I have tried, but we all walk a different path. The only thing I like better than teaching is being taught. But both have a quantum of pain.

cageface 10y ago

I don't think there is such a thing as a 10x programmer if we're just talking about implementation. Where there is easily a 10x factor or more is making the right architectural decisions up front. An experienced dev can avoid making mistakes that can doom a project right out of the gate.

Joeri 10y ago
Another way to make an order of magnitude difference is to approach the problem from the 'why' perspective and come up with a different solution that is a lot less work.