5 ms·

Yeah, there are plenty of fake 10x engineers out there, or temporary 10x-ers who are only doing well because of their working environment. But I have worked wi

Yeah, there are plenty of fake 10x engineers out there, or temporary 10x-ers who are only doing well because of their working environment. But I have worked with a few people who were clear 10x engineers. Everything they worked on they did better and faster and cleaner. They could often solve problems that other skilled people couldn't even get started on. Yes, they usually picked important and impactful things to work on, but even when just assigned tasks from the grab bag of team tasks, they were still 10x faster. Somehow these individuals were also 10x nicer too. The only downside of working with them is going home and looking in the mirror and wondering why you can't match their pace. Oh well, I would trade the hit to my ego for getting to work in their codebase any day of the week.

agumonkey 4y ago
let's make the twitch stream their workflows :)
- lostdog 4y ago
  You joke, but I'd love to pair with my current local 10x-er. It will be like bringing my honda civic to the grand prix, but it should be educational at least.
  - agumonkey 4y ago
    :) cute metaphore and known feeling
deltaonefour 4y ago
My experience rings true with this. They are very few. In a single organization you may not ever meet one. Another thing that sort of matches your experience is that they are 10x nicer. 10x engineers don't show off at all. They don't need to. What I've been finding is that engineers that think they're smart are probably smart, but they are NEVER 10xers.
akomtu 4y ago
Do they also get paid 10x?
- sokoloff 4y ago
  That's the craziest part of the whole thing. They are almost always paid more but rarely paid more than 2x their (rough) peers. It's the greatest overlay in employment and why they're so sought after.
908B64B197 4y ago
I recall a story someone told me a while ago. Software business that did local CoL/prevailing wages. Hired an intern one summer that was just running around in circles around the other, more senior devs. So much so that it actually created friction with the rest of the dev team go figure. Next summer they tried to get him back but he was already at a large search engine company down in the Bay. Of course, he wouldn't return. That's when they realized a whole class of engineers were completely invisible to them; they lucked out hiring him that summer but there was no chance they could attract someone like him full time.
psyc 4y ago
So have I. And that’s why this tiresome perennial argument will never die. You’ve either worked with one and seen fit to give them due credit, or only the first, or neither. And yes the ones I’ve worked with have also been helpful, humble, and kind.
tehchromic 4y ago
With respect, I think you missed the point of the article! It's that we are all 10x engineers in the right context, even if that's providing the context for someone else to be 10x, which of sounds like you are 10x at!
dilyevsky 4y ago
> there are plenty of fake 10x engineers out there, or temporary 10x-ers who are only doing well because of their working environment. Isn’t that just really obvious truism that someone who is hyper specialized and really good in one area say video codecs is probably not a 10x’er in frontend dev? Doesn’t make it fake, still a jackpot as far as employers and probably coworkers are concerned. Unless you’re someone like like Fabrice Bellard but he’s more like a 1000x’er so probably still be better than most at anything programming related
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  I think what the parent meant was that “true” 10x engineers can apply their skills to a wide variety of problems, and it isn’t just applicable to a narrow problem domain and/or for a very short period. This makes clear he isn’t talking someone who just happens to be specialized in a specific codebase or one specific problem, for example.
  - dilyevsky 4y ago
    Most companies won’t have structure to accommodate such generalists anyway so they will get pissed or bored and quit so you probably should look for “fake” ones then.
    - Brian_K_White 4y ago
      Perhaps they are consultants who gig hop?
- readme 4y ago
  i think the major advantage is much more rooted in general problem solving ability familiarity might be able to give you 1-2x edge but 10x+ comes from raw problem solving skill and research aptitude
  - drBonkers 4y ago
    How do you build this raw, generically-applicable problem solving skill? Everything I come across ends up being frameworks for probables specific to a discipline.
here4funzies 4y ago
I'm 10X if I do everything by hand with only efficient and natively supported abstractions. If you ask me to use the latest trendy framework, I go back to 1x or 0.5X.
300bps 4y ago
There are main personality traits that are associated with being not nice: 1. Being a know-it-all 2. Unwilling to admit mistakes 3. Not collaborative 4. Not sharing knowledge 5. Unwilling to be coached There are many more. These “not nice” traits are the same ones that will lead to stunting your growth as a software engineer.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  Except people are incredibly bad judges of character. Naming the traits is the easiest part. Realizing these traits aren't binary and not as easy to judge in the open as they are in a vacuum, not so much. Meanwhile, the people in charge are all to eager to pass "not a team player" judgments over something far more complex than "not nice". This also needs a fair reminder, people suck at communicating.
pts_ 4y ago
That's highschool thought process. Adult thought process is to give your best, for your best.
hooande 4y ago
> Everything they worked on they did better and faster and cleaner. They could often solve problems that other skilled people couldn't even get started on. They may have actually closed tickets 10x faster (which I doubt), but that wasn't providing 10x the value to the company. If there was one person who was resolving 10x the issues of everyone else, that person would be a (very overworked) legend. And I doubt they could keep it up. But it isn't like the company they work for will make 10x the revenue or produce software that is ten times better than the previous version. The person you're describing is good at their job. There's no need for a number. We don't describe fast food workers as "10x fry cooks", even if they are faster than everyone else in the kitchen.
sinenomine 4y ago
> The only downside of working with them is going home and looking in the mirror and wondering why you can't match their pace. One could imagine a society expending not insignificant proportion of GDP on R&D towards human cognitive enhancement. Same society could allow anyone to volunteer for the corresponding enhancement programs. If one starts to ponder why we don't live in such a society, one is led to reconsider major incentives governing our public sphere and key institutions. I don't think in the end there is a rational excuse for obvious lack of government-led or private-funded research into nootropics, neurophysiology of exceptionally bright individuals, and non-therapeutic gene therapy. The amount of research done so far is laughable, compared to obvious transformative impact in case of a breakthrough. As a "tech worker" and as a taxpayer I have to admit that the current nexus of large-scale sociopolitical trends is aggressively coercing me to spend my individual and very limited peak of energy, competence, intelligence and willpower towards advancing mostly deadbeat goals of the attention economy. The small (in absolute terms) fundamental physical difference between the best and merely good enough should not be an insurmountable abyss we take it for. I don't want to be a 2x engineer for your corporate monstrosity or yet another fast-growing CRUD app. I want to be a 2x engineer putting in meaningful work towards implementing the timeline where anyone, myself included, could become a 10x or a 100x engineer by undergoing affordable and safe gene therapy.
- astrange 4y ago
  I think you might have overdosed on the fancy personal optimization literature and skipped the basics. Having a bigger brain metaphorically doesn't necessarily lead to productivity so much as increased ability to delude yourself. The basics for being productive are 1. be in good shape (sleep and exercise) 2. not having to do less important stuff (someone cooks for you) 3. not having any more important stuff to do (no side business, spouse and kids don't demand more of your time). Similarly, the best way to get moderately wealthy isn't to make a lot of complicated investments, it's to marry someone else who works and buy a house together.
  - sinenomine 4y ago
    Please don't pattern match me lazily onto typical silicon valley archetypes. I know and follow basic healthy living advice, yet it is still perfectly obvious where I'm lacking regardless. There shouldn't be this abyss between tiers of people and this burning need for verbal copes should not exist either. Platitudes are a mind killer.
glimshe 4y ago
Some people are just smarter than others - much smarter. These engineers have their brains wired differently, helping them be more suited to programming/design work. If we accept the existence of 10x chess players (state champions) and 1000x chess players (grandmasters), why not 10x engineers? I personally worked with (and managed) amazing engineers that are AT LEAST 10x more productive than the worst AND average engineers. Assuming that they are toxic or hard to work with is something people say to feel "the same when all is taken into account". That's not the case, a lot of these great engineers are great people too making them objectively a lot better than the average engineer.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
mbrodersen 4y ago
Yep my experience as well. I have worked with 10x developers that will quickly outperform any other developers in any area they start working on. I worked with a 10x that started with zero knowledge on a specific programming language and it’s ecosystem and in a few months delivered a well written, easy to maintain large business applications that a whole team of more experienced developers (in that language/ecosystem) had failed to deliver. Developing software is like any other activity. Some people simply are more talented than others. People who refuse to acknowledge this needs to explain why software development is the only activity where talent doesn’t matter. They can’t.

agumonkey 4y ago

let's make the twitch stream their workflows :)

lostdog 4y ago
You joke, but I'd love to pair with my current local 10x-er. It will be like bringing my honda civic to the grand prix, but it should be educational at least.
- agumonkey 4y ago
  :) cute metaphore and known feeling

deltaonefour 4y ago

My experience rings true with this. They are very few. In a single organization you may not ever meet one. Another thing that sort of matches your experience is that they are 10x nicer. 10x engineers don't show off at all. They don't need to. What I've been finding is that engineers that think they're smart are probably smart, but they are NEVER 10xers.

akomtu 4y ago

Do they also get paid 10x?

sokoloff 4y ago
That's the craziest part of the whole thing. They are almost always paid more but rarely paid more than 2x their (rough) peers. It's the greatest overlay in employment and why they're so sought after.

908B64B197 4y ago

I recall a story someone told me a while ago. Software business that did local CoL/prevailing wages. Hired an intern one summer that was just running around in circles around the other, more senior devs. So much so that it actually created friction with the rest of the dev team go figure. Next summer they tried to get him back but he was already at a large search engine company down in the Bay. Of course, he wouldn't return. That's when they realized a whole class of engineers were completely invisible to them; they lucked out hiring him that summer but there was no chance they could attract someone like him full time.

psyc 4y ago

So have I. And that’s why this tiresome perennial argument will never die. You’ve either worked with one and seen fit to give them due credit, or only the first, or neither. And yes the ones I’ve worked with have also been helpful, humble, and kind.

tehchromic 4y ago

With respect, I think you missed the point of the article! It's that we are all 10x engineers in the right context, even if that's providing the context for someone else to be 10x, which of sounds like you are 10x at!

dilyevsky 4y ago

> there are plenty of fake 10x engineers out there, or temporary 10x-ers who are only doing well because of their working environment. Isn’t that just really obvious truism that someone who is hyper specialized and really good in one area say video codecs is probably not a 10x’er in frontend dev? Doesn’t make it fake, still a jackpot as far as employers and probably coworkers are concerned. Unless you’re someone like like Fabrice Bellard but he’s more like a 1000x’er so probably still be better than most at anything programming related

stingraycharles 4y ago
I think what the parent meant was that “true” 10x engineers can apply their skills to a wide variety of problems, and it isn’t just applicable to a narrow problem domain and/or for a very short period. This makes clear he isn’t talking someone who just happens to be specialized in a specific codebase or one specific problem, for example.
- dilyevsky 4y ago
  Most companies won’t have structure to accommodate such generalists anyway so they will get pissed or bored and quit so you probably should look for “fake” ones then.
  - Brian_K_White 4y ago
    Perhaps they are consultants who gig hop?
readme 4y ago
i think the major advantage is much more rooted in general problem solving ability familiarity might be able to give you 1-2x edge but 10x+ comes from raw problem solving skill and research aptitude
- drBonkers 4y ago
  How do you build this raw, generically-applicable problem solving skill? Everything I come across ends up being frameworks for probables specific to a discipline.

here4funzies 4y ago

I'm 10X if I do everything by hand with only efficient and natively supported abstractions. If you ask me to use the latest trendy framework, I go back to 1x or 0.5X.

300bps 4y ago

There are main personality traits that are associated with being not nice: 1. Being a know-it-all 2. Unwilling to admit mistakes 3. Not collaborative 4. Not sharing knowledge 5. Unwilling to be coached There are many more. These “not nice” traits are the same ones that will lead to stunting your growth as a software engineer.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
Except people are incredibly bad judges of character. Naming the traits is the easiest part. Realizing these traits aren't binary and not as easy to judge in the open as they are in a vacuum, not so much. Meanwhile, the people in charge are all to eager to pass "not a team player" judgments over something far more complex than "not nice". This also needs a fair reminder, people suck at communicating.

pts_ 4y ago

That's highschool thought process. Adult thought process is to give your best, for your best.

hooande 4y ago

> Everything they worked on they did better and faster and cleaner. They could often solve problems that other skilled people couldn't even get started on. They may have actually closed tickets 10x faster (which I doubt), but that wasn't providing 10x the value to the company. If there was one person who was resolving 10x the issues of everyone else, that person would be a (very overworked) legend. And I doubt they could keep it up. But it isn't like the company they work for will make 10x the revenue or produce software that is ten times better than the previous version. The person you're describing is good at their job. There's no need for a number. We don't describe fast food workers as "10x fry cooks", even if they are faster than everyone else in the kitchen.

sinenomine 4y ago

> The only downside of working with them is going home and looking in the mirror and wondering why you can't match their pace. One could imagine a society expending not insignificant proportion of GDP on R&D towards human cognitive enhancement. Same society could allow anyone to volunteer for the corresponding enhancement programs. If one starts to ponder why we don't live in such a society, one is led to reconsider major incentives governing our public sphere and key institutions. I don't think in the end there is a rational excuse for obvious lack of government-led or private-funded research into nootropics, neurophysiology of exceptionally bright individuals, and non-therapeutic gene therapy. The amount of research done so far is laughable, compared to obvious transformative impact in case of a breakthrough. As a "tech worker" and as a taxpayer I have to admit that the current nexus of large-scale sociopolitical trends is aggressively coercing me to spend my individual and very limited peak of energy, competence, intelligence and willpower towards advancing mostly deadbeat goals of the attention economy. The small (in absolute terms) fundamental physical difference between the best and merely good enough should not be an insurmountable abyss we take it for. I don't want to be a 2x engineer for your corporate monstrosity or yet another fast-growing CRUD app. I want to be a 2x engineer putting in meaningful work towards implementing the timeline where anyone, myself included, could become a 10x or a 100x engineer by undergoing affordable and safe gene therapy.

astrange 4y ago
I think you might have overdosed on the fancy personal optimization literature and skipped the basics. Having a bigger brain metaphorically doesn't necessarily lead to productivity so much as increased ability to delude yourself. The basics for being productive are 1. be in good shape (sleep and exercise) 2. not having to do less important stuff (someone cooks for you) 3. not having any more important stuff to do (no side business, spouse and kids don't demand more of your time). Similarly, the best way to get moderately wealthy isn't to make a lot of complicated investments, it's to marry someone else who works and buy a house together.
- sinenomine 4y ago
  Please don't pattern match me lazily onto typical silicon valley archetypes. I know and follow basic healthy living advice, yet it is still perfectly obvious where I'm lacking regardless. There shouldn't be this abyss between tiers of people and this burning need for verbal copes should not exist either. Platitudes are a mind killer.

glimshe 4y ago

Some people are just smarter than others - much smarter. These engineers have their brains wired differently, helping them be more suited to programming/design work. If we accept the existence of 10x chess players (state champions) and 1000x chess players (grandmasters), why not 10x engineers? I personally worked with (and managed) amazing engineers that are AT LEAST 10x more productive than the worst AND average engineers. Assuming that they are toxic or hard to work with is something people say to feel "the same when all is taken into account". That's not the case, a lot of these great engineers are great people too making them objectively a lot better than the average engineer.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

mbrodersen 4y ago

Yep my experience as well. I have worked with 10x developers that will quickly outperform any other developers in any area they start working on. I worked with a 10x that started with zero knowledge on a specific programming language and it’s ecosystem and in a few months delivered a well written, easy to maintain large business applications that a whole team of more experienced developers (in that language/ecosystem) had failed to deliver. Developing software is like any other activity. Some people simply are more talented than others. People who refuse to acknowledge this needs to explain why software development is the only activity where talent doesn’t matter. They can’t.