7 ms·

It's a nice write up, but the methodology is based on productivity as measured against coding, debugging, and execution speeds - which does really capture how m

It's a nice write up, but the methodology is based on productivity as measured against coding, debugging, and execution speeds - which does really capture how much more impact a good engineer can bring. The reason is that the impact can't me measured because we can't foresee the inventiveness of a brilliant engineer - if we could foresee then we are that brilliant engineer and are inventing ourselves. For the same reason the act of predicting scientific research is impossible because that would be the very product of research. There's no upper bound on what a brilliant engineers can do, I've known people that you could not replace with 1000 mediocre engineers working for 10 years and they would't produce the same innovation, creativity and automation.

eloff 7y ago
I came here to say this. Because programming is a very high leverage activity, what matters much more than coding speed is the quality of judgement. And that can vary much more than 10x. And the funny thing is the market largely ignores this for programmers, but recognizes it for CEOs. Why are there no rockstar developers pulling in ten million a year? They do exist, but exclusively because they founded a company. I think this doesn't exist in programming because programmers aren't given the freedom to exercise that judgement. Instead they're largely treated like replaceable cogs executing on the vision of other people.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I think it's because programmers generally operate within a framework that guides and controls them and that becomes the limiting factor. It's like having a car that goes 10 times as fast as others but you're driving in the city, so all the traffic gets synchronized at the traffic lights.
  - mockingbirdy 7y ago
    Those two comments perfectly describe the issue IMO. That also means that activating good developers to be 10x people means they need to be given leverage and freedom to automate, innovate and be creative. And maybe also ownership of the product they create - e.g. shares or simply a special kind of recognition. I also see the problem with 10x developers - they are by definition irreplaceable which is impossible to manage properly. But for startups which have a small head-count, this may be needed.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      We don't observe people removing all barriers for special programmers and letting them do whatever they want, which might be evidence it doesn't work. Could it be because a complex system or project tends to be limited by its slowest/least productive necessary component?
      - mockingbirdy 7y ago
        I think the leadership component is very relevant here. A project manager / leader needs to be able to a) identify developers who could be 10x developers, b) develop their characters (some developers may be lazy or undisciplined or have anxieties that hold them back, so this needs to be solved first), c) recognize good technical skills and realistic self-evaluation (a developer that always wants a rewrite because he's certain that he will do it better than everyone before him vs. someone who tries to find a more reasonable way that may involve a rewrite). Overall, this is a very difficult task. If you let developers that have undeveloped characters manage themselves, they'll create a huge mess. And personal development is generally a very difficult task and not something that a leader can control for most parts.
      - repolfx 7y ago
        I'd say we do see that. It's the business model of Sand Hill Road - find talented 10x Devs and shower them with VC money. It seems to work often enough that there are many funds all searching for such people.
- Blackstone4 7y ago
  Why are programmers not treated like CEOs in terms of pay levels? I believe it’s mainly attributable to the capitalist hierarchy we live in. Those in and around the ownership of companies make the most money. In large part because of the leverage that the labor/employees provide. As the world has opened up with free trade, businesses have scaled and this has increased further with the internet and computers. Those selling services to business owners i.e. M&A bankers (glorified real estate agents for businesses), M&A bankers and CEOs have all become richer and better compensated as business owners have gotten richer. It’s all about power, position and where you sit in the hierarchy that dictates how much you get paid and not necessarily the value you bring to the table. Having said all of this, I’m still a capitalist and I’m trying to play the game...ex-software developer turned investment professional...
  - neffy 7y ago
    I find it fascinating you got voted down on what it essentially a pretty accurate description of how the system works.
    - arvinsim 7y ago
      I don't think it's his description that got him downvoted. Rather it is his statement in the end where he "sold out" and became complicit in a system that a lot of people hate.
      - Noumenon72 7y ago
        Either reason for downvoting is illegitimate. This comment is sincere, interesting, and deserves to be readable by others.
      - Blackstone4 7y ago
        I sold out because as a software engineer I was making GBP 23.5k a year plus over time. I had a great review and was the “star performer” on my project. They were hiring people with my skill set for 28k so I asked multiple times for a pay rise and got turned down. I lived in the London area and housing is expensive. Around here financial services pay more and I wanted to be able to buy a house. I left for job that paying 57% more for less hours.
- codingslave 7y ago
  Why are there no rockstar developers pulling in ten million a year? I think there are, but they go by a different name - technical cofounder. There engineers at google and fb clearing one million a year though
perl4ever 7y ago
"There's no upper bound on what a brilliant engineers can do, I've known people that you could not replace with 1000 mediocre engineers working for 10 years and they would't produce the same innovation, creativity and automation." You say that, but is your brilliant programmer going to produce the same output at each of Microsoft, Google, or Xerox?
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  It is a matter of how you use them like anything. If you do your attribuitation wrong you will get nonsense anything. If you have a 10,000 horsepower engine pumping water into a very hot large sieve vs a 1 horse power one into a sealed container the 1 Horsepower one and then judge the engines by the water gathered at the end.
amatecha 7y ago
Some of the people I've encountered over the years who were praised for their speed and "productivity" dragged down the project (and/or the rest of the team) by introducing more bugs (and risk) than anyone else. Upfront perception of "productivity" masks the long-term cost, in so many cases. IMO the true "10X" developer is the one who boosts the rest of the team through mentorship and leadership -- the polar opposite of the "lone keyboard warrior" frequently portrayed as godlike and outweighing any other team member.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  True 10X developers are really good at picking the right tool for the job. They know the OS and standard library of their language very well. They also know patterns for how to apply technology to problems and have read a lot of other people's code. This knowledge translates into up front productivity but also less bugs as things tend to get done right and the correct technology is picked. I've seen a lot of code bases and it's never the super experienced, incredible developers introducing tech debt and bugs, it's the poor to middling developers.
  - james_s_tayler 7y ago
    Agreed. I think there is a bit of Dunning-Kruger going on too. The "architecture astronaut" variety always manage to introduce mountains of tech debt.
- yarg 7y ago
  Getting a given task done fast does not make you a 10x developer. It's 10x over time, not 10x for a given task. There's the fast way of doing something, copy and paste some similar code, tweak it with your goals in mind and you're golden. You also copied every single bug in the code you replicated, and further polluted the base of the software, which is already a steaming heap of unmaintainable garbage because the impetus is for speed over quality, and tacitly encourages developers to do what you just did. Or you could refactor. You look at what needs to be done and how the current API limits your ability to implement it. Update the API to integrate the required features, and refactor if the gradual build up of changes has rendered it unwieldy. Quickly and cleanly implement the new requirements against the improved API. You just spent a day and a half implementing something that could've been done in two to four hours, ignoring whatever manager was wondering why it was taking you so long - but the next time you need to make a similar change you'll be done with dev in half an hour. And when that happens the code you write will be clean, simple and unlikely to introduce new bugs.
randcraw 7y ago
Agreed. How do you compare a software project that succeeds with another that fails? Isn't the successful project infinite(X)-ly better? Therefore isn't the programmer who doesn't fail actually immeasurably better than the one who does fail? If most software projects fail (ests: 55% to 90%), isn't the 10x programmer really just someone who consistently avoids failure? If so, a label like '10x' seems to measure concrete skills that don't really matter, yet fails to measure those abstract skills that really do.

eloff 7y ago

I came here to say this. Because programming is a very high leverage activity, what matters much more than coding speed is the quality of judgement. And that can vary much more than 10x. And the funny thing is the market largely ignores this for programmers, but recognizes it for CEOs. Why are there no rockstar developers pulling in ten million a year? They do exist, but exclusively because they founded a company. I think this doesn't exist in programming because programmers aren't given the freedom to exercise that judgement. Instead they're largely treated like replaceable cogs executing on the vision of other people.

perl4ever 7y ago
I think it's because programmers generally operate within a framework that guides and controls them and that becomes the limiting factor. It's like having a car that goes 10 times as fast as others but you're driving in the city, so all the traffic gets synchronized at the traffic lights.
- mockingbirdy 7y ago
  Those two comments perfectly describe the issue IMO. That also means that activating good developers to be 10x people means they need to be given leverage and freedom to automate, innovate and be creative. And maybe also ownership of the product they create - e.g. shares or simply a special kind of recognition. I also see the problem with 10x developers - they are by definition irreplaceable which is impossible to manage properly. But for startups which have a small head-count, this may be needed.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    We don't observe people removing all barriers for special programmers and letting them do whatever they want, which might be evidence it doesn't work. Could it be because a complex system or project tends to be limited by its slowest/least productive necessary component?
    - mockingbirdy 7y ago
      I think the leadership component is very relevant here. A project manager / leader needs to be able to a) identify developers who could be 10x developers, b) develop their characters (some developers may be lazy or undisciplined or have anxieties that hold them back, so this needs to be solved first), c) recognize good technical skills and realistic self-evaluation (a developer that always wants a rewrite because he's certain that he will do it better than everyone before him vs. someone who tries to find a more reasonable way that may involve a rewrite). Overall, this is a very difficult task. If you let developers that have undeveloped characters manage themselves, they'll create a huge mess. And personal development is generally a very difficult task and not something that a leader can control for most parts.
    - repolfx 7y ago
      I'd say we do see that. It's the business model of Sand Hill Road - find talented 10x Devs and shower them with VC money. It seems to work often enough that there are many funds all searching for such people.
Blackstone4 7y ago
Why are programmers not treated like CEOs in terms of pay levels? I believe it’s mainly attributable to the capitalist hierarchy we live in. Those in and around the ownership of companies make the most money. In large part because of the leverage that the labor/employees provide. As the world has opened up with free trade, businesses have scaled and this has increased further with the internet and computers. Those selling services to business owners i.e. M&A bankers (glorified real estate agents for businesses), M&A bankers and CEOs have all become richer and better compensated as business owners have gotten richer. It’s all about power, position and where you sit in the hierarchy that dictates how much you get paid and not necessarily the value you bring to the table. Having said all of this, I’m still a capitalist and I’m trying to play the game...ex-software developer turned investment professional...
- neffy 7y ago
  I find it fascinating you got voted down on what it essentially a pretty accurate description of how the system works.
  - arvinsim 7y ago
    I don't think it's his description that got him downvoted. Rather it is his statement in the end where he "sold out" and became complicit in a system that a lot of people hate.
    - Noumenon72 7y ago
      Either reason for downvoting is illegitimate. This comment is sincere, interesting, and deserves to be readable by others.
    - Blackstone4 7y ago
      I sold out because as a software engineer I was making GBP 23.5k a year plus over time. I had a great review and was the “star performer” on my project. They were hiring people with my skill set for 28k so I asked multiple times for a pay rise and got turned down. I lived in the London area and housing is expensive. Around here financial services pay more and I wanted to be able to buy a house. I left for job that paying 57% more for less hours.
codingslave 7y ago
Why are there no rockstar developers pulling in ten million a year? I think there are, but they go by a different name - technical cofounder. There engineers at google and fb clearing one million a year though

perl4ever 7y ago

"There's no upper bound on what a brilliant engineers can do, I've known people that you could not replace with 1000 mediocre engineers working for 10 years and they would't produce the same innovation, creativity and automation." You say that, but is your brilliant programmer going to produce the same output at each of Microsoft, Google, or Xerox?

Nasrudith 7y ago
It is a matter of how you use them like anything. If you do your attribuitation wrong you will get nonsense anything. If you have a 10,000 horsepower engine pumping water into a very hot large sieve vs a 1 horse power one into a sealed container the 1 Horsepower one and then judge the engines by the water gathered at the end.

amatecha 7y ago

Some of the people I've encountered over the years who were praised for their speed and "productivity" dragged down the project (and/or the rest of the team) by introducing more bugs (and risk) than anyone else. Upfront perception of "productivity" masks the long-term cost, in so many cases. IMO the true "10X" developer is the one who boosts the rest of the team through mentorship and leadership -- the polar opposite of the "lone keyboard warrior" frequently portrayed as godlike and outweighing any other team member.

malvosenior 7y ago
True 10X developers are really good at picking the right tool for the job. They know the OS and standard library of their language very well. They also know patterns for how to apply technology to problems and have read a lot of other people's code. This knowledge translates into up front productivity but also less bugs as things tend to get done right and the correct technology is picked. I've seen a lot of code bases and it's never the super experienced, incredible developers introducing tech debt and bugs, it's the poor to middling developers.
- james_s_tayler 7y ago
  Agreed. I think there is a bit of Dunning-Kruger going on too. The "architecture astronaut" variety always manage to introduce mountains of tech debt.
yarg 7y ago
Getting a given task done fast does not make you a 10x developer. It's 10x over time, not 10x for a given task. There's the fast way of doing something, copy and paste some similar code, tweak it with your goals in mind and you're golden. You also copied every single bug in the code you replicated, and further polluted the base of the software, which is already a steaming heap of unmaintainable garbage because the impetus is for speed over quality, and tacitly encourages developers to do what you just did. Or you could refactor. You look at what needs to be done and how the current API limits your ability to implement it. Update the API to integrate the required features, and refactor if the gradual build up of changes has rendered it unwieldy. Quickly and cleanly implement the new requirements against the improved API. You just spent a day and a half implementing something that could've been done in two to four hours, ignoring whatever manager was wondering why it was taking you so long - but the next time you need to make a similar change you'll be done with dev in half an hour. And when that happens the code you write will be clean, simple and unlikely to introduce new bugs.

randcraw 7y ago

Agreed. How do you compare a software project that succeeds with another that fails? Isn't the successful project infinite(X)-ly better? Therefore isn't the programmer who doesn't fail actually immeasurably better than the one who does fail? If most software projects fail (ests: 55% to 90%), isn't the 10x programmer really just someone who consistently avoids failure? If so, a label like '10x' seems to measure concrete skills that don't really matter, yet fails to measure those abstract skills that really do.