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Hiring people is like gambling for companies, as in most tech companies hire some person on the off chance they're a 10x developer, though expect them to be a 1
by atleastoptimal 2y ago
Hiring people is like gambling for companies, as in most tech companies hire some person on the off chance they're a 10x developer, though expect them to be a 1.5x one on average. Even if you're a 2x developer, you haven't lived up to the hypothetical 10x ideal to your employer, so they aren't willing to put in the extra money and effort to convince you to stay, there's more incentive to put that money into hiring the next potential 10x-er
An analogy is, let's say you get a treasure box that can be opened for 100 dollars and may contain 1000 dollars. You open it and find 150 dollars. There is a smaller box inside which you can open for another 50 dollars which could contain at most 75 dollars but will most likely only contain 50 dollars. Do you spend those 50 dollars on opening the smaller box, or do you use the money to buy another larger chest that could contain 1000 dollars?
- rightbyte 2y agoThe chest need to have the risk of containing a pirate ghost that punches you in the face, for the analogy to make sense. Churn is a risk in that sense. Known average programmers have the quality of not punching you in the face.
- kaba0 2y agoFrankly, this 10x dev myth should just die. There are only at most 2x developers, and most ordinary people are just below the 1x factor.
- fragmede 2y agoLike other idioms in the English language, it's not a mathematically accurate statement, but it persistents. Like a ten foot pole or a dime a dozen.
- rsyring 2y ago"Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering" cited research indicating it can be as high as 28x. To get that number, you have to take into consideration terrible devs who are negative multipliers. I.e. the scale is not 1x - 10x. It's more like -10x - 10x. I've personally experienced development projects where there was easily a -5x - 5x difference between the least and most productive. I've seen productivity improve when devs have been removed from a project.
- kaba0 2y agoMinus times plus is minus though :D
- dmichulke 2y agoI suppose they couldn't call that new hire a -1000x developer either.
- Izkata 2y agoThe original research that 10x came from used 1x for "worst", not "average". Their scale was 1x - 10x. IIRC it was also "within a given team" or some sort of similar scope, not over all developers, which would explain why they didn't see that 28x.
- sumedh 2y ago> this 10x dev myth should just die. How would you rate someone like John Carmack?
- solardev 2y agoHe overflows to -2147483648x.
- ttyprintk 2y agoI don’t understand, from the beginning, why we weren’t talking about the 10x manager mathematically improving their team in aggregate? That has sports coach metaphors whereas the 10x engineer only has 19th century patent metaphors.
- tmn 2y agoInsignificant quibble, but they should be expected to be a 1x developer on average by definition.