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Ironically I suspect that wind l while the idea will feed many egos the reality would crush or frustrate those same people. If the DoD certifies someone as a 10

Ironically I suspect that wind l while the idea will feed many egos the reality would crush or frustrate those same people. If the DoD certifies someone as a 100x developer it would be after crafting a ruthlessly banal evaluation system that would likely lack the romantic attitude towards software many developers have in my experience. Especially if the criteria included some social skills component that determined part of a developers rating by how well they synergize with similarly rated peers.

neilv 4y ago
I think the DoD has had many outstanding R&D successes, hiring or contracting elite engineers and scientists to do amazing things, which beat most of what we see from tech private sector B2C and B2B businesses. That's one place you'll need some people who can find brilliant solutions or insights that most people simply cannot, no matter whether you throw 100x times the number of people at the problem. But if they're having trouble attracting and retaining as many 1x-3x everyday software developers as they'd like, I agree, it'd be easy to imagine an attempt that fails miserably due to stereotypical bureaucracy. Paying close to FAANG TC levels would be a start, since it would cover the monetary factor, and i think the prestige factor would quickly follow. (I bet few people think adtech, fintech, or yet-another-microblogging/messaging/profile-app are actually cool anymore -- only the money is what makes those companies prestigious.) Maybe pay 80% of FAANG, so the FAANGs will still get the people who only want money, and you offer better non-monetary value to make up that 20%. (80% should be close enough they can afford to live in the same neighborhoods and send their kids to the same schools as FAANG, rather than be lower class that could upgrade just by grinding Leetcode for a few months.) Then manage those units like they are very serious excellent product development organizations where everyone wants to work. And figure out how to do the culture better than all the companies that got too much into class thinking, and too much jumping through the hoops for interview and pursuit of promotions, rather than focus on the mission and team.

neilv 4y ago

I think the DoD has had many outstanding R&D successes, hiring or contracting elite engineers and scientists to do amazing things, which beat most of what we see from tech private sector B2C and B2B businesses. That's one place you'll need some people who can find brilliant solutions or insights that most people simply cannot, no matter whether you throw 100x times the number of people at the problem. But if they're having trouble attracting and retaining as many 1x-3x everyday software developers as they'd like, I agree, it'd be easy to imagine an attempt that fails miserably due to stereotypical bureaucracy. Paying close to FAANG TC levels would be a start, since it would cover the monetary factor, and i think the prestige factor would quickly follow. (I bet few people think adtech, fintech, or yet-another-microblogging/messaging/profile-app are actually cool anymore -- only the money is what makes those companies prestigious.) Maybe pay 80% of FAANG, so the FAANGs will still get the people who only want money, and you offer better non-monetary value to make up that 20%. (80% should be close enough they can afford to live in the same neighborhoods and send their kids to the same schools as FAANG, rather than be lower class that could upgrade just by grinding Leetcode for a few months.) Then manage those units like they are very serious excellent product development organizations where everyone wants to work. And figure out how to do the culture better than all the companies that got too much into class thinking, and too much jumping through the hoops for interview and pursuit of promotions, rather than focus on the mission and team.