7 ms·

Honestly, a 10x engineer can do most of the list, but better. It's common misconception that if a person excels at something (s)he must lack in some other capac

Honestly, a 10x engineer can do most of the list, but better. It's common misconception that if a person excels at something (s)he must lack in some other capacity. This is not true - there are extraordinary people that are insanely good across the board. They solve problems with unnatural speed and cunning, can explain complex things to 6 year old, really nice and social and love all programming languages (the last one maybe not actually).

headmelted 4y ago
I feel like this misses the point. And then a lot.
- echelon 4y ago
  The "there's no such thing as a 10x engineer" crowd forgets or dismisses that there's a distribution of engineering talent and capability. You can even find examples. Fabrice Bellard immediately comes to mind.
  - throw10920 4y ago
    John Carmack. Donald Knuth. Casey Muratori? Linus Torvalds. "There's no such thing as a 10x engineer" people probably haven't seen a normal distribution before.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - Dudeman112 4y ago
      >people probably haven't seen a normal distribution before And yet there aren't 17 meters tall people (avg adult male height back home is 1.7m) Mind you, I consider the whole discussion stupid since it's an intellectual/creative job Every. Single. Instance. Of trying to measure such things has failed at producing consistent results or results with predictive capability. Talking about X times engineer makes no sense when you don't even know what a 1x engineer is.
    - rsanek 4y ago
      Knowledge work is much closer to a power law distribution than a normal one. That is, there are indeed a handful of 10x engineers, but it's not a ton of 1x and some 0.1x. It's overwhelmingly 0.1x. This paper does a good job of showing just how dominant the 10x are in areas with unambiguous and legible outcomes (tenure of politicians, number of Emmy wins, etc.) http://www.hermanaguinis.com/PPsych2012.pdf http://www.hermanaguinis.com/PPsych2012.pdf
  - headmelted 4y ago
    I'm convinced the 10x engineer doesn't exist. It's not that the 10x engineer is a myth - it's a fallacy. You'll find that people in the same profession (any profession) will have variance in their abilities and their return to a project, but it's a big leap to assume that someone that appears to perform much better than their peers is actually doing so in any objective sense. The 10x engineer is more likely than not the person most familiar with the project and the codebase, knows the real reason why Mark didn't just put everything on Kubernetes or why Tanya didn't want to switch from React to Vue before leaving the team. Or.. it's an engineer that has the ear and the faith of higher-ups in the organisation to deliver results because they're good at convincingly taking credit for them. Generally I find that 10x engineer on here means "knows more than most about [tech stack X]" and can work quickly. That's cool if all other things are equal, but I've had to clean up more than a couple of catastrophic messes left in the wake of people that worked quickly. Just to pre-empt someone telling me I must never have met a real 10x engineer or some other such dismissive response - I'm an average fish in an average pond. I've had people tell me how good I am in the past, both reports and managers, and have in both cases corrected them politely that I've just had more time with the problem/project/codebase than others have. Anytime I hear someone talk about 10X engineers, let alone describing themselves as that, all it makes me think is that there's a failure of humility. None of this belittles Fabrice Bellard. Or John Carmack. Or Chris Lattner. Or [known and respected programmer]. Their achievements speak for themselves. You could give names of people in the field all day. There's a lot of us around. How many of the self-described or colleague-described "10X engineers" floating around are Linus Torvalds?
    - glimshe 4y ago
      I've managed many "10x" engineers. They do exist. These engineers I'm thinking about not only are amazingly productive but solve problems average engineers can't solve no matter how much time you give them. Their solutions are elegant, performant and survive design changes. Their code is easier to maintain. Paying 2x the average to these people is a steal,as they are a LOT better than that. Not sure how much, but I'd rather have one of them on my team than 3 average engineers (probably more). I'm not saying average engineers aren't useful workers. They are, they get things done if they aren't incompetent. But they are nowhere near a 10x engineer. 10x engineers aren't perfect. But they are amazing nonetheless. If you have never worked with one, maybe it's because you had bad luck, haven't been around long enough or haven't worked in great teams. Whatever the reason,once you meet a 10x, you will know it.
  - anonymous_sorry 4y ago
    >there's a distribution of engineering talent and capability I think the debate is over the properties of that distribution, and whether it needs to be plotted on a logarithmic scale
  - tasn 4y ago
    What I never understood about this debate is that surely these people realize that LeBron is 10x better than some other NBA players. Why can't the same apply to engineers? Personal anecdote: I've worked with 10x, 1x, 0x, -1x and -10x engineers, and everything in between.
adamdusty 4y ago
I dont think the post mentions anything about what 10x engineers do or don't do. It's just a list of things normal people do.
- jhugo 4y ago
  I feel like these labels don't really help anyone. Everything on the list is stuff anybody should strive to do, except copy-pasting from Stack Overflow ;)
  - dTal 4y ago
    I think that's the idea? You don't have to be a "10x engineer" to be useful and productive.
tyleo 4y ago
Agreed. Reflecting on the list, many aspects have to do with teamwork and cooperation. I’d go so far as to say the real 10x folks should strive for is 10xing their coworkers. If a 10x engineers is as good as 10 engineers, a 10x team of 5 may be 50!
- shagie 4y ago
  From The Tao of Programming - Book 3 - Design - Section 3.4 > A manager went to the Master Programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application. The manager asked the Master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?" > "It will take one year," said the Master promptly. > "But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take if I assign ten programmers to it?" > The Master Programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years." > "And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?" > The Master Programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said. --- 10x programmers are just as susceptible to Brooks’ Law as the regular programmer is. I believe part of the 10x factor is the ability to hold a larger part of the problem space in one's mind. Having developers that overlap in that without a single vision (thus the importance of the surgical team approach), brings out the worst case of Brooks' law with more interaction needed to keep things in their scope.
masterof0 4y ago
That have not been my experience so far, every time I see a "10X engineer" (worked at several big tech companies) either they have been working in the problem for years or they put 12+ hours of works every day.I don't believe in geniuses myself, never seen one. There are for sure incredible people who have done great things, but you can clearly see, they lack in many other aspects of life. Also, note, that most of those people are not really interested in the "other aspects" of life, but as a complete human being, they have an unbalanced life, obviously, because you need time to develop skills.
- wly_cdgr 4y ago
- mbrodersen 4y ago
  I have worked with 10x developers that were lazy and only really worked a few hours a day. And they still dramatically outperformed everybody else. Their code was simple and 99.999% bug free. So they spend all their time moving forward, delivering feature after feature, while the rest spent 90% of their time fixing bugs and other self-created problems.
  - masterof0 4y ago
    Maybe the bar in the team was very low, and that person is just normal, and only have to work that little to do better. When you get to a place where every team member is very good, the 10x engineer cease to exist. I'm sure there are very good engineers, but I doubt 10x is really a thing. I'm yet two find someone that will 10x another person with the same age, educational background, and communication skills.
    - mbrodersen 4y ago
      That might be your experience but not mine. I have been luckily enough to work with really good people most of my career. For example, people I worked with who were good but not 10x went on to work for Google. So are you going to claim that 10x athletes, 10x business people, 10x chess players etc. doesn’t exist as well? And if not why would software development be the one exception from all the rest? Also, perhaps ask yourself why you desperately want it not to be true? What does that tell you about your own self-confidence/ambitions?
gsibble 4y ago
Yeah, this article seems to be bashing the concept of the 10x engineer. I know engineers who I'd define as 10x who are equally excellent at all of these items as well. If anything, this is just a general definition of an engineer.

headmelted 4y ago

I feel like this misses the point. And then a lot.

echelon 4y ago
The "there's no such thing as a 10x engineer" crowd forgets or dismisses that there's a distribution of engineering talent and capability. You can even find examples. Fabrice Bellard immediately comes to mind.
- throw10920 4y ago
  John Carmack. Donald Knuth. Casey Muratori? Linus Torvalds. "There's no such thing as a 10x engineer" people probably haven't seen a normal distribution before.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Dudeman112 4y ago
    >people probably haven't seen a normal distribution before And yet there aren't 17 meters tall people (avg adult male height back home is 1.7m) Mind you, I consider the whole discussion stupid since it's an intellectual/creative job Every. Single. Instance. Of trying to measure such things has failed at producing consistent results or results with predictive capability. Talking about X times engineer makes no sense when you don't even know what a 1x engineer is.
  - rsanek 4y ago
    Knowledge work is much closer to a power law distribution than a normal one. That is, there are indeed a handful of 10x engineers, but it's not a ton of 1x and some 0.1x. It's overwhelmingly 0.1x. This paper does a good job of showing just how dominant the 10x are in areas with unambiguous and legible outcomes (tenure of politicians, number of Emmy wins, etc.) http://www.hermanaguinis.com/PPsych2012.pdf http://www.hermanaguinis.com/PPsych2012.pdf
- headmelted 4y ago
  I'm convinced the 10x engineer doesn't exist. It's not that the 10x engineer is a myth - it's a fallacy. You'll find that people in the same profession (any profession) will have variance in their abilities and their return to a project, but it's a big leap to assume that someone that appears to perform much better than their peers is actually doing so in any objective sense. The 10x engineer is more likely than not the person most familiar with the project and the codebase, knows the real reason why Mark didn't just put everything on Kubernetes or why Tanya didn't want to switch from React to Vue before leaving the team. Or.. it's an engineer that has the ear and the faith of higher-ups in the organisation to deliver results because they're good at convincingly taking credit for them. Generally I find that 10x engineer on here means "knows more than most about [tech stack X]" and can work quickly. That's cool if all other things are equal, but I've had to clean up more than a couple of catastrophic messes left in the wake of people that worked quickly. Just to pre-empt someone telling me I must never have met a real 10x engineer or some other such dismissive response - I'm an average fish in an average pond. I've had people tell me how good I am in the past, both reports and managers, and have in both cases corrected them politely that I've just had more time with the problem/project/codebase than others have. Anytime I hear someone talk about 10X engineers, let alone describing themselves as that, all it makes me think is that there's a failure of humility. None of this belittles Fabrice Bellard. Or John Carmack. Or Chris Lattner. Or [known and respected programmer]. Their achievements speak for themselves. You could give names of people in the field all day. There's a lot of us around. How many of the self-described or colleague-described "10X engineers" floating around are Linus Torvalds?
  - glimshe 4y ago
    I've managed many "10x" engineers. They do exist. These engineers I'm thinking about not only are amazingly productive but solve problems average engineers can't solve no matter how much time you give them. Their solutions are elegant, performant and survive design changes. Their code is easier to maintain. Paying 2x the average to these people is a steal,as they are a LOT better than that. Not sure how much, but I'd rather have one of them on my team than 3 average engineers (probably more). I'm not saying average engineers aren't useful workers. They are, they get things done if they aren't incompetent. But they are nowhere near a 10x engineer. 10x engineers aren't perfect. But they are amazing nonetheless. If you have never worked with one, maybe it's because you had bad luck, haven't been around long enough or haven't worked in great teams. Whatever the reason,once you meet a 10x, you will know it.
- anonymous_sorry 4y ago
  >there's a distribution of engineering talent and capability I think the debate is over the properties of that distribution, and whether it needs to be plotted on a logarithmic scale
- tasn 4y ago
  What I never understood about this debate is that surely these people realize that LeBron is 10x better than some other NBA players. Why can't the same apply to engineers? Personal anecdote: I've worked with 10x, 1x, 0x, -1x and -10x engineers, and everything in between.

adamdusty 4y ago

I dont think the post mentions anything about what 10x engineers do or don't do. It's just a list of things normal people do.

jhugo 4y ago
I feel like these labels don't really help anyone. Everything on the list is stuff anybody should strive to do, except copy-pasting from Stack Overflow ;)
- dTal 4y ago
  I think that's the idea? You don't have to be a "10x engineer" to be useful and productive.

tyleo 4y ago

Agreed. Reflecting on the list, many aspects have to do with teamwork and cooperation. I’d go so far as to say the real 10x folks should strive for is 10xing their coworkers. If a 10x engineers is as good as 10 engineers, a 10x team of 5 may be 50!

shagie 4y ago
From The Tao of Programming - Book 3 - Design - Section 3.4 > A manager went to the Master Programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application. The manager asked the Master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?" > "It will take one year," said the Master promptly. > "But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take if I assign ten programmers to it?" > The Master Programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years." > "And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?" > The Master Programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said. --- 10x programmers are just as susceptible to Brooks’ Law as the regular programmer is. I believe part of the 10x factor is the ability to hold a larger part of the problem space in one's mind. Having developers that overlap in that without a single vision (thus the importance of the surgical team approach), brings out the worst case of Brooks' law with more interaction needed to keep things in their scope.

masterof0 4y ago

That have not been my experience so far, every time I see a "10X engineer" (worked at several big tech companies) either they have been working in the problem for years or they put 12+ hours of works every day.I don't believe in geniuses myself, never seen one. There are for sure incredible people who have done great things, but you can clearly see, they lack in many other aspects of life. Also, note, that most of those people are not really interested in the "other aspects" of life, but as a complete human being, they have an unbalanced life, obviously, because you need time to develop skills.

wly_cdgr 4y ago
mbrodersen 4y ago
I have worked with 10x developers that were lazy and only really worked a few hours a day. And they still dramatically outperformed everybody else. Their code was simple and 99.999% bug free. So they spend all their time moving forward, delivering feature after feature, while the rest spent 90% of their time fixing bugs and other self-created problems.
- masterof0 4y ago
  Maybe the bar in the team was very low, and that person is just normal, and only have to work that little to do better. When you get to a place where every team member is very good, the 10x engineer cease to exist. I'm sure there are very good engineers, but I doubt 10x is really a thing. I'm yet two find someone that will 10x another person with the same age, educational background, and communication skills.
  - mbrodersen 4y ago
    That might be your experience but not mine. I have been luckily enough to work with really good people most of my career. For example, people I worked with who were good but not 10x went on to work for Google. So are you going to claim that 10x athletes, 10x business people, 10x chess players etc. doesn’t exist as well? And if not why would software development be the one exception from all the rest? Also, perhaps ask yourself why you desperately want it not to be true? What does that tell you about your own self-confidence/ambitions?

gsibble 4y ago

Yeah, this article seems to be bashing the concept of the 10x engineer. I know engineers who I'd define as 10x who are equally excellent at all of these items as well. If anything, this is just a general definition of an engineer.