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The 10x programmer doesn't exist. Yes, an experienced programmer can complete a well defined coding exercise, in their field of expertise, ten or more times fas

The 10x programmer doesn't exist. Yes, an experienced programmer can complete a well defined coding exercise, in their field of expertise, ten or more times faster than other programmers. There is research to back up this claim. However, in the real world software engineering is hardly ever just about programming. As a permanent employee there is a lot of time sink in attending meetings, town halls, compliance training, performance reviews and just generally sucking up to management to ensure you get the promotion you want. "Ten times programmers" often heavily rely on their team to be able to be this efficient. The worst ones rely on their team to fix their hacky codebase as they move on to a new project.

ericb 4y ago
That's just not true! There are 10x programmers, and even higher. On certain tasks you won't see the difference at all. Are you John Carmack-good? I'm not. Let's be big enough to admit it! Think of it like Opera. The average singer can't hit the high notes, and no matter how much time they are given, they may never. If you just need to sing happy birthday everyday, the average and amazing singers might seem equivalent. They're not, though.
- oxfordmale 4y ago
  There only a few John Carmack and Linus Torvalds in the world, just as there only a limited number of opera singers compared to regular singers. The suggestion is that 10 times programmers are much more common than that. This is a more modern scientific article dispelling the myth of a 10 times developer https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8804291 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8804291
whynaut 4y ago
Literally the third sentence says > Their skill isn’t in programming, it’s in reducing ambiguity rapidly and advancing efforts through complexity rapidly You should make a top-level comment if you plan on ignoring context.
- oxfordmale 4y ago
  How do you reduce ambiguity quickly if the customers do not know themselves what they want?
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    Well, that’s the trick isn’t it? A 10x engineer does that. Because you may not doesn’t mean no one can. A large part of my successful career has been built around my ability to intuitively discern the essence of the challenges my customers face and proposing then implementing novel solutions to it. I don’t know how I do it, but I do. I’m able to enlist my teams to a productive and useful way, cut through blocking issues rapidly, and (when I was writing a lot of code) implementing clean solutions that the rest of my team were struggling with. The 10x doesn’t come from writing 10x the LOC, it comes from writing the right 1 line of code 10x faster than another engineer, and finding ways to make your team around you 10x more productive. I’m sorry you’ve not had a chance to work with folks like this. And you are right, they are in top employers because they are valuable, and are over represented in FAANG. And they are extraordinarily rare, and as such are extraordinarily expensive. But rarity doesn’t imply impossibility.
  - mejutoco 4y ago
    Asking questions and offering mvps and doing binary search on the space of solutions. If you are free to decide how you work you can get a lot of things done.
idontpost 4y ago
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fnordpiglet 4y ago
This is opposite in every way from my experiences above, including my direct experience being one. Especially the “rely on the team” - I think you’re confusing hero programmers with 10x programmers. Hero programmers leave husks of teams and shoddy code in their wake as they rampage through a career of self interest. A 10x programmer is a force multiplier for the team and spends their energy unblocking the team and driving a high standard for quality and ease of improvement. That’s essentially how they accomplish 10x the work, even in their own work. Because the team functions well around them friction to effective productivity is much lower.
fargle 4y ago
nope, sorry they absolutely exist and 10x may easily be an understatement. now, the conditions must be right - you put a 10x embedded system software engineer into a java microservices job, in a couple weeks he might be a 2x. You make a 10x engineer go to 37 hours of meetings a week, you get a 0.05x engineer (along with everyone else on the team). but no, either you've never seen or experienced one or else you don't recognize what you just saw. people who are oblivious to their own capabilities, or lack thereof, wouldn't recognize the difference.
- oxfordmale 4y ago
  So that means one engineer can do the job of ten? Unlikely. It is even more unlikely that person is working in your organisation, unless you work in one of the FANG companies. It is also worth reading this https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8804291 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8804291
  - fargle 4y ago
    there are problems that people solve that you could pick 10,000 average engineers and they'd never solve. if you have the right person and the right problems why not? how many books have you written vs. Donald Knuth? Richard Stevens? etc. those are just famous examples. do you think you have approximately the same skill as yo-yo ma? is he not approximately 100x (or more) what you'd be at his job? i don't think it's a stretch to say he's about 10x of the average professional cellist. as other have pointed out talent, productivity, whatever measure you pick generally follows a normal-like distribution. if you center that bon "1x", most people are about average. 10x, 20x exists, but it might be quite rare. -1x also exists, as do -10x (e.g. that guy who single-handedly destroyed the project via mismanagement, ego, incompetence). to not recognize this is just simply naive or you can't appreciate other people's talents.
    - oxfordmale 4y ago
      There are indeed a few legends, however, they are rare. It would be rare for a developer to have the privilege to work with these people. I agree there is a normal distribution, however, I disagree about the width of the distribution. The variance is much smaller than you think
epolanski 4y ago
> However, in the real world software engineering is hardly ever just about programming. Which is why i like to talk about 10x engineers rather than just focusing on the development part.

ericb 4y ago

That's just not true! There are 10x programmers, and even higher. On certain tasks you won't see the difference at all. Are you John Carmack-good? I'm not. Let's be big enough to admit it! Think of it like Opera. The average singer can't hit the high notes, and no matter how much time they are given, they may never. If you just need to sing happy birthday everyday, the average and amazing singers might seem equivalent. They're not, though.

oxfordmale 4y ago
There only a few John Carmack and Linus Torvalds in the world, just as there only a limited number of opera singers compared to regular singers. The suggestion is that 10 times programmers are much more common than that. This is a more modern scientific article dispelling the myth of a 10 times developer https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8804291 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8804291

whynaut 4y ago

Literally the third sentence says > Their skill isn’t in programming, it’s in reducing ambiguity rapidly and advancing efforts through complexity rapidly You should make a top-level comment if you plan on ignoring context.

oxfordmale 4y ago
How do you reduce ambiguity quickly if the customers do not know themselves what they want?
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  Well, that’s the trick isn’t it? A 10x engineer does that. Because you may not doesn’t mean no one can. A large part of my successful career has been built around my ability to intuitively discern the essence of the challenges my customers face and proposing then implementing novel solutions to it. I don’t know how I do it, but I do. I’m able to enlist my teams to a productive and useful way, cut through blocking issues rapidly, and (when I was writing a lot of code) implementing clean solutions that the rest of my team were struggling with. The 10x doesn’t come from writing 10x the LOC, it comes from writing the right 1 line of code 10x faster than another engineer, and finding ways to make your team around you 10x more productive. I’m sorry you’ve not had a chance to work with folks like this. And you are right, they are in top employers because they are valuable, and are over represented in FAANG. And they are extraordinarily rare, and as such are extraordinarily expensive. But rarity doesn’t imply impossibility.
- mejutoco 4y ago
  Asking questions and offering mvps and doing binary search on the space of solutions. If you are free to decide how you work you can get a lot of things done.

idontpost 4y ago

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fnordpiglet 4y ago

This is opposite in every way from my experiences above, including my direct experience being one. Especially the “rely on the team” - I think you’re confusing hero programmers with 10x programmers. Hero programmers leave husks of teams and shoddy code in their wake as they rampage through a career of self interest. A 10x programmer is a force multiplier for the team and spends their energy unblocking the team and driving a high standard for quality and ease of improvement. That’s essentially how they accomplish 10x the work, even in their own work. Because the team functions well around them friction to effective productivity is much lower.

fargle 4y ago

nope, sorry they absolutely exist and 10x may easily be an understatement. now, the conditions must be right - you put a 10x embedded system software engineer into a java microservices job, in a couple weeks he might be a 2x. You make a 10x engineer go to 37 hours of meetings a week, you get a 0.05x engineer (along with everyone else on the team). but no, either you've never seen or experienced one or else you don't recognize what you just saw. people who are oblivious to their own capabilities, or lack thereof, wouldn't recognize the difference.

oxfordmale 4y ago
So that means one engineer can do the job of ten? Unlikely. It is even more unlikely that person is working in your organisation, unless you work in one of the FANG companies. It is also worth reading this https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8804291 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8804291
- fargle 4y ago
  there are problems that people solve that you could pick 10,000 average engineers and they'd never solve. if you have the right person and the right problems why not? how many books have you written vs. Donald Knuth? Richard Stevens? etc. those are just famous examples. do you think you have approximately the same skill as yo-yo ma? is he not approximately 100x (or more) what you'd be at his job? i don't think it's a stretch to say he's about 10x of the average professional cellist. as other have pointed out talent, productivity, whatever measure you pick generally follows a normal-like distribution. if you center that bon "1x", most people are about average. 10x, 20x exists, but it might be quite rare. -1x also exists, as do -10x (e.g. that guy who single-handedly destroyed the project via mismanagement, ego, incompetence). to not recognize this is just simply naive or you can't appreciate other people's talents.
  - oxfordmale 4y ago
    There are indeed a few legends, however, they are rare. It would be rare for a developer to have the privilege to work with these people. I agree there is a normal distribution, however, I disagree about the width of the distribution. The variance is much smaller than you think

epolanski 4y ago

> However, in the real world software engineering is hardly ever just about programming. Which is why i like to talk about 10x engineers rather than just focusing on the development part.