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Your definition is also vague. Someone still needs to do the legwork. One man armies who can do everything themselves don't really fit in standardized teams whe

Your definition is also vague. Someone still needs to do the legwork. One man armies who can do everything themselves don't really fit in standardized teams where everything is compartmentalized and work divided and spread out. They work best on their own projects with nobody else in their way, no colleagues, no managers, but that's not most jobs. Once you're part of a team, you can't do too much work yourself no matter how good you are, as inevitably the other slower/weaker team members will slow you down as you'll fight dealing with the issues they introduce into the project or the issues from management, so every team moves at the speed of the lowest common denominator no matter their rockstars.

jollyllama 3y ago
That rings true and is probably why the 10x engineers I have seen usually work on devops or modify the framework the other devs are using in some way. For example, an engineer who speeds up a build or test suite by an order of magnitude is easily a 10x engineer in most organizations, in terms of man hours saved.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  > For example, an engineer who speeds up a build or test suite by an order of magnitude is easily a 10x engineer in most organizations, in terms of man hours saved. Yeah but this isn't something scalable that can happen regularly as part of your job description. Like most jobs/companies don't have so many low hanging fruits to pick that someone can speed of build by orders of magnitude on a weekly basis. It's usually a one time thing. And one time things don't usually make you a 10x dev. Maybe you just got lucky once to see something others missed. And often times at big places most people know where the low hanging fruits are and can fix them, but management, release schedules and tech debt are perpetually in the way. IMHO what makes you a 10x dev is you always know how to unblock people no matter the issue so that the project is constantly smooth saling, not chasing orders of magnitude improvements unicorns.
  - tranceylc 3y ago
    Does anyone else feel like people follow these sort of industry pop-culture terms a bit too intensely? What I mean is that the existence of the term tends to bring out people trying to figure who that might be, as if it has to be 100% true. I personally think that some people can provide “10x” (arbitrary) the value on occasion, like the low hanging fruit you said. I also believe some people are slightly more skilled than others, and get more results out of their work. That said, there are so many ways for somebody to have an impact that doesn’t have to immediate, that I find the term itself too prevalent.
    - lukan 3y ago
      "Does anyone else feel like people follow these sort of industry pop-culture terms a bit too intensely? " Agreed, there is too much effort going into the "superstars" theme, but there are definitely people who get 10x done in the same time as others.
      - t-3 3y ago
        Yep. No matter what you're doing, some people are more productive than others. Often it's a matter of experience and practice, sometimes ability to focus, sometimes motivation, rarely it's a lack or surplus of inherent ability. Using people effectively in the context of a team all depends on the skill of the manager though.
        whstl 3y ago
        I think a lot of people that complain about 10x chattery in HN should take some kind of carpentry etc course or some other kind of handiwork like that with a real master. Some of those people not only get things done much quicker, but they also get it done with better quality than an amateur, with less mistakes, throwing away less material, sometimes with more safety. This is definitely more than 10x better. And there are some real hacks doing those kinds of jobs. I find programming to be not different than that.
theamk 3y ago
Nothing wrong with "one man armies" in the team context. There is a long list of tasks that needs to be done.. over same time period, one person will do 5 complex tasks (with tests and documentation), while the other will do just 1 task, and then spend even more time redoing it properly. Over time this produces funny effects, like super-big 20 point task done in few days because wrong person started working on it.

jollyllama 3y ago

That rings true and is probably why the 10x engineers I have seen usually work on devops or modify the framework the other devs are using in some way. For example, an engineer who speeds up a build or test suite by an order of magnitude is easily a 10x engineer in most organizations, in terms of man hours saved.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
> For example, an engineer who speeds up a build or test suite by an order of magnitude is easily a 10x engineer in most organizations, in terms of man hours saved. Yeah but this isn't something scalable that can happen regularly as part of your job description. Like most jobs/companies don't have so many low hanging fruits to pick that someone can speed of build by orders of magnitude on a weekly basis. It's usually a one time thing. And one time things don't usually make you a 10x dev. Maybe you just got lucky once to see something others missed. And often times at big places most people know where the low hanging fruits are and can fix them, but management, release schedules and tech debt are perpetually in the way. IMHO what makes you a 10x dev is you always know how to unblock people no matter the issue so that the project is constantly smooth saling, not chasing orders of magnitude improvements unicorns.
- tranceylc 3y ago
  Does anyone else feel like people follow these sort of industry pop-culture terms a bit too intensely? What I mean is that the existence of the term tends to bring out people trying to figure who that might be, as if it has to be 100% true. I personally think that some people can provide “10x” (arbitrary) the value on occasion, like the low hanging fruit you said. I also believe some people are slightly more skilled than others, and get more results out of their work. That said, there are so many ways for somebody to have an impact that doesn’t have to immediate, that I find the term itself too prevalent.
  - lukan 3y ago
    "Does anyone else feel like people follow these sort of industry pop-culture terms a bit too intensely? " Agreed, there is too much effort going into the "superstars" theme, but there are definitely people who get 10x done in the same time as others.
    - t-3 3y ago
      Yep. No matter what you're doing, some people are more productive than others. Often it's a matter of experience and practice, sometimes ability to focus, sometimes motivation, rarely it's a lack or surplus of inherent ability. Using people effectively in the context of a team all depends on the skill of the manager though.
      - whstl 3y ago
        I think a lot of people that complain about 10x chattery in HN should take some kind of carpentry etc course or some other kind of handiwork like that with a real master. Some of those people not only get things done much quicker, but they also get it done with better quality than an amateur, with less mistakes, throwing away less material, sometimes with more safety. This is definitely more than 10x better. And there are some real hacks doing those kinds of jobs. I find programming to be not different than that.

theamk 3y ago

Nothing wrong with "one man armies" in the team context. There is a long list of tasks that needs to be done.. over same time period, one person will do 5 complex tasks (with tests and documentation), while the other will do just 1 task, and then spend even more time redoing it properly. Over time this produces funny effects, like super-big 20 point task done in few days because wrong person started working on it.