I don't think someone who cranks through 10x more features while leaving loads of debt behind them is a 10x engineer. In general you could think of all softwar

I don't think someone who cranks through 10x more features while leaving loads of debt behind them is a 10x engineer. In general you could think of all software development as a heap of hacks. It gets taller and taller and taller until it falls over. What you are describing is someone who makes the heap a lot closer to falling over. The ideal of a 10x engineer is someone who makes the heap more stable, someone whose architectural contributions make it possible to have a higher heap and allow others to do more/better work. Over the long term a 10x engineer's product is the capacity for more growth. Mentorship is certainly one way to get a longer lever to stand on -- a way of making investments in the future, but even feature dev can fit the bill: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-cool-cam https://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-cool-cam