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> I'm not sure I understand why people are so eager to conflate the term "10x engineer" with "an arrogant engineer who is only seemingly productive because of
by pgcj_poster 7y ago
> I'm not sure I understand why people are so eager to conflate the term "10x engineer" with "an arrogant engineer who is only seemingly productive because of either obfuscation or generation of technical debt".
I think it's pretty clearly because those are almost always the people who will call themselves "10x engineers," and obsess about the idea of being better than everyone else. Good programmers don't do that for the same reason that "any man who must say 'I am king' is no true king."
- rickthomas1980 7y agoBut why let the definition of the term "10x" be hijacked by the kind of people you describe? We still need a way to succinctly describe engineers who are an order of magnitude more effective than average. Can't we let "10x" continue to mean what it's always meant, and agree on a new term for toxic team members?
- pgcj_poster 7y agoI'm not sure that we do need such a term. Ability is a continuous function, and there's nothing magic that happens once you reach 10 times the average[1] that justifies such fixation. I never hear anyone talk about recruiting 5x engineers, even though it would be more viable as a business strategy. Besides, we can't even measure engineering ability to the precision at which specifying "10x" even makes much sense. When would "10x" actually be a more useful descriptor than "very good"? Also, where are all the "10x artists" or "10x mechanics"? [1] Although I read here just a few days ago that a 10x engineer is only ten times as good as a bad engineer, not 10 times the average. So maybe it hasn't always meant the same thing?