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I disagree with this narrative. 10x developers are about efficiency, in that they are able to produces code that has effects that is vastly more impactful than

I disagree with this narrative. 10x developers are about efficiency, in that they are able to produces code that has effects that is vastly more impactful than the organization average, and at the same time, these activities are done in equal amount of time as others. If someone has a long history on a project, by definition, he/she can only achieve 10x because of others were effectively handicaped. That's the point in case from the article: 10x dev in this context should be the one who either built a system is so simple that newcomers easily onboard and contributed as good as anyone can be; or he has done a great job of organize the code base, docs, and organization structure, in such a way that newcomers can quickly get grasp of the parts that they are working on; and can quickly get the information needed when new work assignments coming in.

username90 6y ago
You missed the point. The best dev in the world will be slow if he has to work with a huge mess created by many bad devs over a decade. However if the best dev in the world got to create his own architecture and compete with the people working on the mess he can beat a team of hundreds depending on the domain.
- justicezyx 6y ago
  Oh no, I totally get your version of your 10x engineer. For my version, your version is seen as a facade, an euphoria exaggerated because of the basic human instinct to grandiose things beyond their true impact. If you look at any so called best engineer, their output is seldom much better than an average one, under close examination. Far from the claim of 10X. But none the less such individuals eventually garnered the title. Why? Because the impact of their invention were attributed to them far later than their original timing and more works by the normal human beings were simply ignored. We see this everyday, like Elon was touted as the real world iron man, where at the same time, he didn't even founded Tesla. How about the original Tesla founders? Even the original founders were exaggerated far beyond their own contribution anyway...
  - username90 6y ago
    So according to you technical debt isn't a huge problem that can slow down release of software by more than 10x? Or do you argue that every programmer creates close to equal amounts of technical debt? Or what is your point? If you just argue that people who created technical debt that only they can work with are often misattributed as 10x programmers then basically everyone agrees with you, but that wasn't really the point you responded to.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > If you look at any so called best engineer, their output is seldom much better than an average one, under close examination. F I disagree. Under close examination, the best engineers contribute a greater multiple than is apparent at a superficial analysis (and the best engineers under close examination may not even be the same ones as stand out under superficial examination.) The superficial “best” contributions tends to measured by the reciprocal of time to complete a task of a given complexity to team standards. But a lot of the best engineers contributions will be in unsticking (or preventing) other engineers impediments, contributing to process improvement, design critique that avoids the team taking long walks down paths that need to be undone later, and otherwise improving velocity on tasks that other people are doing concurrently or down the road from their action.

username90 6y ago

You missed the point. The best dev in the world will be slow if he has to work with a huge mess created by many bad devs over a decade. However if the best dev in the world got to create his own architecture and compete with the people working on the mess he can beat a team of hundreds depending on the domain.

justicezyx 6y ago
Oh no, I totally get your version of your 10x engineer. For my version, your version is seen as a facade, an euphoria exaggerated because of the basic human instinct to grandiose things beyond their true impact. If you look at any so called best engineer, their output is seldom much better than an average one, under close examination. Far from the claim of 10X. But none the less such individuals eventually garnered the title. Why? Because the impact of their invention were attributed to them far later than their original timing and more works by the normal human beings were simply ignored. We see this everyday, like Elon was touted as the real world iron man, where at the same time, he didn't even founded Tesla. How about the original Tesla founders? Even the original founders were exaggerated far beyond their own contribution anyway...
- username90 6y ago
  So according to you technical debt isn't a huge problem that can slow down release of software by more than 10x? Or do you argue that every programmer creates close to equal amounts of technical debt? Or what is your point? If you just argue that people who created technical debt that only they can work with are often misattributed as 10x programmers then basically everyone agrees with you, but that wasn't really the point you responded to.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > If you look at any so called best engineer, their output is seldom much better than an average one, under close examination. F I disagree. Under close examination, the best engineers contribute a greater multiple than is apparent at a superficial analysis (and the best engineers under close examination may not even be the same ones as stand out under superficial examination.) The superficial “best” contributions tends to measured by the reciprocal of time to complete a task of a given complexity to team standards. But a lot of the best engineers contributions will be in unsticking (or preventing) other engineers impediments, contributing to process improvement, design critique that avoids the team taking long walks down paths that need to be undone later, and otherwise improving velocity on tasks that other people are doing concurrently or down the road from their action.