4 ms·

It's possible, but harder than almost any other role. There are people at Google/Meta like this. Usually E7/E8 levels, "coding machines". It's much easier to go

by nvarsj 3y ago

It's possible, but harder than almost any other role. There are people at Google/Meta like this. Usually E7/E8 levels, "coding machines". It's much easier to go into a pseudo PM/TL/Director role though to hit those levels and income, so it's uncommon. You really have to have a passion for coding to put in the hours and be very good at it. Incredibly rare, believe it or not. Lots of people think they are good coders but this is another level. Proof is in your commit/code review count/async comms being 10x-100x of everyone else in your org, and it's clear you're single-handedly enabling delivery of major projects earlier than anyone else could. Think of the pressure of doing this continuously.

potatopatch 3y ago
> and it's clear you're single-handedly enabling delivery of major projects earlier than anyone else could. You have to watch out with that.. I've seen whole projects pushed through by management where no one else was involved enough to review normally, but everyone had an interaction that implied they had only seen the top of the iceberg of problems with it.
sasaf5 3y ago
Maybe Google and Meta are different than my company, or maybe I am not in the league of such star coder, but in my experience as soon as a demo of my code is delivered I am immediately launched into managerial mode coordinating other devs working on my code. I came to just accept it.
NhanH 3y ago
It's not about being rockstar or 10x. He was the chairman of the board (and President of the LLC). Practically speaking, he can work however he wishes within the company. Seeing that he went from CTO role to President role, it's fairly obvious that he got the opportunity to structure the role and the work to best fit him (and probably the company, too).
- ramraj07 3y ago
  There’s always a hoarde of people second guessing the 10x engineer. Of course it looks impossible to regular folks. I have seen a few people like this. They’re real. Sometimes it’s even worth the dysfunction they cause to see this in action.
  - vasco 3y ago
    Same, I've seen it in practice and the numbers didn't lie, week on week on week. But you know, some people are very uncomfortable with someone else being called smart. Worse yet what if they're called smarter than what they actually are? Like an injustice in the universe, but comes from defensiveness I think. I don't know this guy in particular so I have no clue though.
  - kpandit 3y ago
    Not commenting about the ppl who are subject of this thread but talking in general. I have been lucky enough to have seen some of these 10x engineers but what is much more common is a 1x engineer feeling and treated like a 10x engineer because they are surrounded by 0.1x engineers.
    - Xcelerate 3y ago
      Haha, that reminds me a lot of this quote from an Atlantic article on Freeman Dyson: I asked him whether as a boy he had speculated much about his gift. Had he asked himself why he had this special power? Why he was so bright? Dyson is almost infallibly a modest and self-effacing man, but tonight his eyes were blank with fatigue, and his answer was uncharacteristic. “That’s not how the question phrases itself,” he said. “The question is: why is everyone else so stupid?”
    - wavewrangler 3y ago
      That’s still 10x. If you think that’s worth mentioning, you should see the 10x engineers swoon over the 100x unicorn.
  - NhanH 3y ago
    I am not second guessing the 10x engineer, that topic is not the one under discussion. The topic at hand is “how did a high level engineer got to focus on programming”. And I am saying that the reason has to do more with his influence and role within the organization, rather than other reason.
mindesc 3y ago
It could be also a sign of dependency hoarding and making you the bottleneck of the whole project. Bad architectural decisions, narcissistic need of importance or both. With those hours your partner starts to date with your friend. With experience I can assure you that position is not worth it. Not for you and not for the project. You end up draining your imagination. Over fitting is emerging in programming like it is emerging in the machine learning.
- visarga 3y ago
  > Over fitting is emerging in programming like it is emerging in the machine learning. That's a nice insight. I have been in that place many times, I was overfitting on my own imagination.
  - mindesc 3y ago
    Filling up that mana bar is not easy.
throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
This is a well debunked myth. You can commit a lot of code and commit better quality code, but there is an upper bound on productivity. If you don't get enough rest the quality diminishes. Management and leadership of a team has a way bigger impact than any single individual contributor could ever have. Humans are generally limited not by intelligence but by motivation and vision. Directing people to achieve what you want is what allows the scaling of innovation. Hero worship is a very human thing, but unscientific.
- nvarsj 3y ago
  I'm not discounting management or leadership. These are also very critical roles that can make or break organisations. But I'd challenge your assertion that management has a "way bigger impact" than a single IC can have. Both are critical at companies doing internet scale products.

by nvarsj 3y ago

potatopatch 3y ago

> and it's clear you're single-handedly enabling delivery of major projects earlier than anyone else could. You have to watch out with that.. I've seen whole projects pushed through by management where no one else was involved enough to review normally, but everyone had an interaction that implied they had only seen the top of the iceberg of problems with it.

sasaf5 3y ago

Maybe Google and Meta are different than my company, or maybe I am not in the league of such star coder, but in my experience as soon as a demo of my code is delivered I am immediately launched into managerial mode coordinating other devs working on my code. I came to just accept it.

NhanH 3y ago

It's not about being rockstar or 10x. He was the chairman of the board (and President of the LLC). Practically speaking, he can work however he wishes within the company. Seeing that he went from CTO role to President role, it's fairly obvious that he got the opportunity to structure the role and the work to best fit him (and probably the company, too).

ramraj07 3y ago
There’s always a hoarde of people second guessing the 10x engineer. Of course it looks impossible to regular folks. I have seen a few people like this. They’re real. Sometimes it’s even worth the dysfunction they cause to see this in action.
- vasco 3y ago
  Same, I've seen it in practice and the numbers didn't lie, week on week on week. But you know, some people are very uncomfortable with someone else being called smart. Worse yet what if they're called smarter than what they actually are? Like an injustice in the universe, but comes from defensiveness I think. I don't know this guy in particular so I have no clue though.
- kpandit 3y ago
  Not commenting about the ppl who are subject of this thread but talking in general. I have been lucky enough to have seen some of these 10x engineers but what is much more common is a 1x engineer feeling and treated like a 10x engineer because they are surrounded by 0.1x engineers.
  - Xcelerate 3y ago
    Haha, that reminds me a lot of this quote from an Atlantic article on Freeman Dyson: I asked him whether as a boy he had speculated much about his gift. Had he asked himself why he had this special power? Why he was so bright? Dyson is almost infallibly a modest and self-effacing man, but tonight his eyes were blank with fatigue, and his answer was uncharacteristic. “That’s not how the question phrases itself,” he said. “The question is: why is everyone else so stupid?”
  - wavewrangler 3y ago
    That’s still 10x. If you think that’s worth mentioning, you should see the 10x engineers swoon over the 100x unicorn.
- NhanH 3y ago
  I am not second guessing the 10x engineer, that topic is not the one under discussion. The topic at hand is “how did a high level engineer got to focus on programming”. And I am saying that the reason has to do more with his influence and role within the organization, rather than other reason.

mindesc 3y ago

It could be also a sign of dependency hoarding and making you the bottleneck of the whole project. Bad architectural decisions, narcissistic need of importance or both. With those hours your partner starts to date with your friend. With experience I can assure you that position is not worth it. Not for you and not for the project. You end up draining your imagination. Over fitting is emerging in programming like it is emerging in the machine learning.

visarga 3y ago
> Over fitting is emerging in programming like it is emerging in the machine learning. That's a nice insight. I have been in that place many times, I was overfitting on my own imagination.
- mindesc 3y ago
  Filling up that mana bar is not easy.

throwawaaarrgh 3y ago

This is a well debunked myth. You can commit a lot of code and commit better quality code, but there is an upper bound on productivity. If you don't get enough rest the quality diminishes. Management and leadership of a team has a way bigger impact than any single individual contributor could ever have. Humans are generally limited not by intelligence but by motivation and vision. Directing people to achieve what you want is what allows the scaling of innovation. Hero worship is a very human thing, but unscientific.

nvarsj 3y ago
I'm not discounting management or leadership. These are also very critical roles that can make or break organisations. But I'd challenge your assertion that management has a "way bigger impact" than a single IC can have. Both are critical at companies doing internet scale products.