4 ms·

I'm not sure your math works. What we do know is that the worst engineers provide negative productivity. If 1x is the worst engineer, then let's for the sake o

I'm not sure your math works. What we do know is that the worst engineers provide negative productivity. If 1x is the worst engineer, then let's for the sake of discussion denote x as -1 in order for the product to be negative. Except that means the 10x engineer provides -10 productivity, actually making them the worst engineer. Therein lies a conflict. What we also know is that best engineer has positive productivity, so that means the multiplicand must always be positive. Which means that it is the multiplier that must go negative, meaning that a -1x and maybe even a -10x engineer exists.

JimDabell 3y ago
You are arguing against the idea that there is a factor of ten difference in productivity between the best and the worst engineers. That’s fine if you want to do that, but that’s explicitly where the term “10x engineer” comes from and what defines its meaning. So if you disagree with the underlying concept, there is no way for you to use terms like “[n]x engineer” coherently since you disagree with its most fundamental premise. You certainly shouldn’t reinvent different meanings for these terms.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
moritzwarhier 3y ago
Thank you. This sounds so trivial at first, but your reductio ad absurdum at the beginning of your comment really nails it. Throw into the mix the fact that productivity is hard to measure as soon as more than one person works on something and that doesn't even begin to consider the economical aspects of software. And even when ignoring this point, there's that pesky short-term vs long-term thing. Also, how do you define the term "productivity"? I was assuming that you mean somethint along the lines of (indirect, if employed) monetary output.
margalabargala 3y ago
You're not wrong, but I think you may be treating something as literal math, when it is in fact idiomatic labels used to express trends.
- randomdata 3y ago
  The problem here is the introduction of productivity. The 10x developer originated from a study that measured performance. The 10x developer being able to do a task in a 10th of the time is quite conceivable and reflects what the study found. I'm sure we've all seen a developer take 10 hours to do a job that would take another developer just 1 hour. Nobody is doing it in negative hours, so the math works. But performance is not the same as productivity.
  - esafak 3y ago
    Measuring productivity like that in technology makes no sense because our work is not fungible; what and how we do it matters as much as how fast we do it. Time-based productivity measurement is for factory workers stamping out widgets. So in our revenue-based world, negative productivity makes sense.
    - randomdata 3y ago
      > productivity Performance. That is what the study that found a 10x performance difference observed. There is no mention of productivity in the study. If anyone has tried to study productivity, they most certainly have not come up with a 10x moniker. It seems productivity was mentioned in this thread only because it also happens to start with the letter 'p' and someone got confused.
loeg 3y ago
Engineers with negative productivity are vanishingly rare, soon to be terminated, and reasonable to exclude for the purpose of the comparison.
- randomdata 3y ago
  Okay, but it still doesn't work. The world's worst engineer who somehow managed to successfully contribute one line of code to something like GPT is way more productive than a great engineer who designed from top to bottom the best laid software ever conceived but was thrown away before seeing the light of day because the business changed direction. Of course, that doesn't actually matter as the original study found a 10x difference in measuring performance, not productivity. There is nothing out there to suggest that some developers are 10x more productive outside of those who mixed up their p words. We're not actually talking about productivity; that was just a mistake. If one were to study productivity, I expect they would find that some engineers are many orders of magnitude more productive than the least productive engineers.
  - loeg 3y ago
    > The world's worst engineer who somehow managed to successfully contribute one line of code to something like GPT is way more productive than a great engineer who designed from top to bottom the best laid software ever conceived but was thrown away before seeing the light of day because the business changed direction. I reject that assertion. > performance, not productivity You keep saying this like it's a slam dunk refutation, but performance and productivity are highly related.
    - randomdata 3y ago
      > I reject that assertion. Because you don't believe the worst developer contributed anything to GPT? Sure, in reality that's no doubt true, but it was only ever meant to be illustrative. > but performance and productivity are highly related. Not in any meaningful way. The study found that the fastest developer can perform a set of defined tasks in a 10th of the time of the slowest developer. That is what the 10x developer refers to. But being fast doesn't mean being productive. Come to my backyard and we will each dig a hole of equal size. Let's assume that you can dig the hole in a 10th of the time I can – that you are the 10x hole digger. But, no matter how fast you are, neither of us will be productive.
strken 3y ago
Productivity in this case is performance on contrived tasks that don't represent day-to-day work well and for some of which negative score isn't possible.

JimDabell 3y ago

You are arguing against the idea that there is a factor of ten difference in productivity between the best and the worst engineers. That’s fine if you want to do that, but that’s explicitly where the term “10x engineer” comes from and what defines its meaning. So if you disagree with the underlying concept, there is no way for you to use terms like “[n]x engineer” coherently since you disagree with its most fundamental premise. You certainly shouldn’t reinvent different meanings for these terms.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

moritzwarhier 3y ago

Thank you. This sounds so trivial at first, but your reductio ad absurdum at the beginning of your comment really nails it. Throw into the mix the fact that productivity is hard to measure as soon as more than one person works on something and that doesn't even begin to consider the economical aspects of software. And even when ignoring this point, there's that pesky short-term vs long-term thing. Also, how do you define the term "productivity"? I was assuming that you mean somethint along the lines of (indirect, if employed) monetary output.

margalabargala 3y ago

You're not wrong, but I think you may be treating something as literal math, when it is in fact idiomatic labels used to express trends.

randomdata 3y ago
The problem here is the introduction of productivity. The 10x developer originated from a study that measured performance. The 10x developer being able to do a task in a 10th of the time is quite conceivable and reflects what the study found. I'm sure we've all seen a developer take 10 hours to do a job that would take another developer just 1 hour. Nobody is doing it in negative hours, so the math works. But performance is not the same as productivity.
- esafak 3y ago
  Measuring productivity like that in technology makes no sense because our work is not fungible; what and how we do it matters as much as how fast we do it. Time-based productivity measurement is for factory workers stamping out widgets. So in our revenue-based world, negative productivity makes sense.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > productivity Performance. That is what the study that found a 10x performance difference observed. There is no mention of productivity in the study. If anyone has tried to study productivity, they most certainly have not come up with a 10x moniker. It seems productivity was mentioned in this thread only because it also happens to start with the letter 'p' and someone got confused.

loeg 3y ago

Engineers with negative productivity are vanishingly rare, soon to be terminated, and reasonable to exclude for the purpose of the comparison.

randomdata 3y ago
Okay, but it still doesn't work. The world's worst engineer who somehow managed to successfully contribute one line of code to something like GPT is way more productive than a great engineer who designed from top to bottom the best laid software ever conceived but was thrown away before seeing the light of day because the business changed direction. Of course, that doesn't actually matter as the original study found a 10x difference in measuring performance, not productivity. There is nothing out there to suggest that some developers are 10x more productive outside of those who mixed up their p words. We're not actually talking about productivity; that was just a mistake. If one were to study productivity, I expect they would find that some engineers are many orders of magnitude more productive than the least productive engineers.
- loeg 3y ago
  > The world's worst engineer who somehow managed to successfully contribute one line of code to something like GPT is way more productive than a great engineer who designed from top to bottom the best laid software ever conceived but was thrown away before seeing the light of day because the business changed direction. I reject that assertion. > performance, not productivity You keep saying this like it's a slam dunk refutation, but performance and productivity are highly related.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > I reject that assertion. Because you don't believe the worst developer contributed anything to GPT? Sure, in reality that's no doubt true, but it was only ever meant to be illustrative. > but performance and productivity are highly related. Not in any meaningful way. The study found that the fastest developer can perform a set of defined tasks in a 10th of the time of the slowest developer. That is what the 10x developer refers to. But being fast doesn't mean being productive. Come to my backyard and we will each dig a hole of equal size. Let's assume that you can dig the hole in a 10th of the time I can – that you are the 10x hole digger. But, no matter how fast you are, neither of us will be productive.

strken 3y ago

Productivity in this case is performance on contrived tasks that don't represent day-to-day work well and for some of which negative score isn't possible.