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Engineering work, like many other branches of intellectual work, does not have many of the properties of other jobs. So I don't share the ideal of a normal engi

Engineering work, like many other branches of intellectual work, does not have many of the properties of other jobs. So I don't share the ideal of a normal engineer doing normal work in their office hours. I also don't buy into the 10x pushback, there's not only 10x engineers, there's 100x engs. Easy to prove, can you think of an engineer that adds negative value? That deletes tests, or breaks stuff? That adds left-pad to package.json? Or log4j? The bigger the org the bigger the damage. Boom, you have a -1x engineer, and conversely a +1x engineer. If they do a lot of damage that's a -10x engineer. If they do some damage and contribute a little bit maybe they can get into positive numbers, and you have a 0.1x engineer, therefore there exist 10x engineers (and 100x and 1000x and inf and -10x engineers.) I do agree that performance is not quantifiable (or very hard to quantify) and that it is not a property of an engineer ( although the article suggests performance is a variable of teams or the org, but I would say it's a property of the engineer-product pair)

mbernstein 2y ago
These are terrible examples that don't prove a single thing. Babel, Webpack, and React all used leftpad as dependencies. Blaming someone for using an Apache project is absurd. Here's my pointless randomly made up on the spot anecdote - you're more likely to write a vulnerability in your own logging system than being impactedby using a widely adopted opensource one.
- TZubiri 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    It sounds like you don't have an appreciation for software complexity. What starts off as a simple write() call balloons into a complex system as it evolves to meet your needs. Only then will we know if a great developer was behind the wheels, by how easy it is for the next person in job of maintaining and extending the system to fuck something up due to a lack of context and experience. Another sign of a real 10x engineer is an even temperament and a lack of arrogance, as being a team player is important in any environment. You can't be a 10x engineer in a vacuum.
    - TZubiri 2y ago
      Yeah, the warzone will be the final judge, no doubt, this is just cheap talk. > a real 10x engineer is an even temperament and a lack of arrogance Super subjective, but I see the 10x engineer as being arrogant, you have got to if you are really 10 times above your peers. Although it's true that some arrogance might come from a place of insecurity. Someone who is truly leagues above someone else will not berate them for being below, they will encourage them to improve or palliate them. Pointing out how the other is worse and they are better is argumentative, which usually a 10x anything doesn't need.
      - soulofmischief 2y ago
        You're confusing confidence and arrogance. Confidence can be misplaced, or maybe hard-won through experience. But arrogance never has a place in a team. If you go around thinking you're 10x better than your peers, you're massively selling yourself short and I can bet you the rest of the engineers do not feel the same way about you. > Pointing out how the other is worse and they are better is argumentative, which usually a 10x anything doesn't need I'll be honest, this post is a bit incomprehensible. You say a good engineer has to be arrogant, then go on to claim how such an attitude can be combative. Pick one argument, not two conflicting arguments. You sound young. I understand that youth can sometimes lead to the kind of arrogant thinking in your comments, but real wisdom will start coming whenever you realize how this kind of thinking looks to others, stop making comparisons, and try to learn from everyone on your team.
        TZubiri 2y ago
        You are correct in that there are conflicting views, which is why I used the 'although' connector. I don't have it all figured out and I might use these posts to think aloud rather than espouse a consistent message
djeastm 2y ago
>Easy to prove, can you think of an engineer that adds negative value? That deletes tests, or breaks stuff? No. Have you really worked with someone that did this and they weren't fired?
- TZubiri 2y ago
  I'll change the perspective so that we can look further. Have you ever seen a product that got worse over time instead of better? I find that it's the majority. Even if they get sales and more users. I'll list the exceptions: whatsapp, and even they succumb to bloat features like ai slop or stories or "communities". If you take a wider period, all software gets worse with time(they die, nothing is forever).
  - gavmor 2y ago
    It's hardly the fault of the engineer that products are poorly managed, or poorly designed.
    - TZubiri 2y ago
      No. The engineer is ultimately responsible for the product. If a bridge falls, will the engineer wash his hands?
      - gavmor 2y ago
        No, and neither will a software engineer wash her hands of a bug, but a construction engineer isn't responsible for the layout of a building being overly labyrinthine—that's on the architect. Likewise, product managers and designers who are talking to customers and conducting user experience research have the context to make decisions that engineers can't reasonably second guess.
        TZubiri 2y ago
        We may be thinking of two different roles, which might fall under the engineer umbrella. When I think of an engineer (and especially so a 10x or elite engineer), they design and invent and create and have absolute control over what they do. If an engineer doesn't have control or follows the designs of an architect, they are merely in an executor role, and their engineering skill is put to use not in inventing or solving a problem but merely executing. There's a time and place for that, but it's definitely not the dream when I think of the engineer I would want to be.
buryat 2y ago
it's like cancer, it keeps replicating
flavio81 2y ago
>Easy to prove, can you think of an engineer that adds negative value? Yes, i have many examples. Two of them I personally fired. One of them, I should have fired much early. I let this engineer basically add negative value by trying to make his peers (other engineers) finish the work it was delegated to him, thus creating negative value by preventing the other, highly productive engineers, to do their tasks. I warned him not to do this, but he didn't heed. Sadly due to Human Resources the firing process took way too long. I should've acted earlier.
TZubiri 2y ago
[dead]

mbernstein 2y ago

These are terrible examples that don't prove a single thing. Babel, Webpack, and React all used leftpad as dependencies. Blaming someone for using an Apache project is absurd. Here's my pointless randomly made up on the spot anecdote - you're more likely to write a vulnerability in your own logging system than being impactedby using a widely adopted opensource one.

TZubiri 2y ago
[flagged]
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  It sounds like you don't have an appreciation for software complexity. What starts off as a simple write() call balloons into a complex system as it evolves to meet your needs. Only then will we know if a great developer was behind the wheels, by how easy it is for the next person in job of maintaining and extending the system to fuck something up due to a lack of context and experience. Another sign of a real 10x engineer is an even temperament and a lack of arrogance, as being a team player is important in any environment. You can't be a 10x engineer in a vacuum.
  - TZubiri 2y ago
    Yeah, the warzone will be the final judge, no doubt, this is just cheap talk. > a real 10x engineer is an even temperament and a lack of arrogance Super subjective, but I see the 10x engineer as being arrogant, you have got to if you are really 10 times above your peers. Although it's true that some arrogance might come from a place of insecurity. Someone who is truly leagues above someone else will not berate them for being below, they will encourage them to improve or palliate them. Pointing out how the other is worse and they are better is argumentative, which usually a 10x anything doesn't need.
    - soulofmischief 2y ago
      You're confusing confidence and arrogance. Confidence can be misplaced, or maybe hard-won through experience. But arrogance never has a place in a team. If you go around thinking you're 10x better than your peers, you're massively selling yourself short and I can bet you the rest of the engineers do not feel the same way about you. > Pointing out how the other is worse and they are better is argumentative, which usually a 10x anything doesn't need I'll be honest, this post is a bit incomprehensible. You say a good engineer has to be arrogant, then go on to claim how such an attitude can be combative. Pick one argument, not two conflicting arguments. You sound young. I understand that youth can sometimes lead to the kind of arrogant thinking in your comments, but real wisdom will start coming whenever you realize how this kind of thinking looks to others, stop making comparisons, and try to learn from everyone on your team.
      - TZubiri 2y ago
        You are correct in that there are conflicting views, which is why I used the 'although' connector. I don't have it all figured out and I might use these posts to think aloud rather than espouse a consistent message

djeastm 2y ago

>Easy to prove, can you think of an engineer that adds negative value? That deletes tests, or breaks stuff? No. Have you really worked with someone that did this and they weren't fired?

TZubiri 2y ago
I'll change the perspective so that we can look further. Have you ever seen a product that got worse over time instead of better? I find that it's the majority. Even if they get sales and more users. I'll list the exceptions: whatsapp, and even they succumb to bloat features like ai slop or stories or "communities". If you take a wider period, all software gets worse with time(they die, nothing is forever).
- gavmor 2y ago
  It's hardly the fault of the engineer that products are poorly managed, or poorly designed.
  - TZubiri 2y ago
    No. The engineer is ultimately responsible for the product. If a bridge falls, will the engineer wash his hands?
    - gavmor 2y ago
      No, and neither will a software engineer wash her hands of a bug, but a construction engineer isn't responsible for the layout of a building being overly labyrinthine—that's on the architect. Likewise, product managers and designers who are talking to customers and conducting user experience research have the context to make decisions that engineers can't reasonably second guess.
      - TZubiri 2y ago
        We may be thinking of two different roles, which might fall under the engineer umbrella. When I think of an engineer (and especially so a 10x or elite engineer), they design and invent and create and have absolute control over what they do. If an engineer doesn't have control or follows the designs of an architect, they are merely in an executor role, and their engineering skill is put to use not in inventing or solving a problem but merely executing. There's a time and place for that, but it's definitely not the dream when I think of the engineer I would want to be.

buryat 2y ago

it's like cancer, it keeps replicating

flavio81 2y ago

>Easy to prove, can you think of an engineer that adds negative value? Yes, i have many examples. Two of them I personally fired. One of them, I should have fired much early. I let this engineer basically add negative value by trying to make his peers (other engineers) finish the work it was delegated to him, thus creating negative value by preventing the other, highly productive engineers, to do their tasks. I warned him not to do this, but he didn't heed. Sadly due to Human Resources the firing process took way too long. I should've acted earlier.

TZubiri 2y ago

[dead]