3 ms·
I appreciate the overall point of the article, but have a gripe. The author (and others) gets it wrong on the original meaning of 10x. A 10x engineer isn't some
by magicmicah85 2y ago
I appreciate the overall point of the article, but have a gripe. The author (and others) gets it wrong on the original meaning of 10x. A 10x engineer isn't someone who is 10x as productive as their peers, they are 10x as productive as their worst performing peer. The original study the author links to compares the difference of work between the fastest code and the slowest code. The fast debugger and the slow debugger.
When we talk about 10X, it should be about comparing it to the least productive team member - the 1X. There is always going to be a 1X person on the team. That's not bad if the team average is 1.5-2X, but if the average and discrepancy gets large enough, you're going to have the 10-100X team member who gets a lot done.
Also, not all work is equal. The 10X engineer who is only 10X in programming may be a 1X in collaboration or documentation. That's not a good dynamic, either. Again, appreciate the point of the article, "build great teams", but we need the 10X person in each task to do that. If the build pipeline is slow and costing us money, I need the best people on the team to go figure that out. And, I need our worst engineer who is still learning to be involved so that they can grow their skills. Become a 1.1x, 1.2x, etc.
Hat tip to these articles on 10x engineer studies:
https://jasoncrawford.org/10x-engineers https://jasoncrawford.org/10x-engineers
https://www.construx.com/blog/productivity-variations-among-software-developers-and-teams-the-origin-of-10x/ https://www.construx.com/blog/productivity-variations-among-...
- mmcromp 2y agoWho cares if the term "10X dev" was derived from a misunderstanding of actual studies (that may or may not be legitimate), the term itself is very clearly about superhuman rock stars. If you want to move the discussion of 10X devs away from the 10X dev then stop using the term "10X dev".
- magicmicah85 2y agoHow do you define a "superhuman rock star"? Is it someone that competes at 10x the capacity of the average performance or 10x the capacity of the worst performance? Someone who is 10x the average is likely 25-100x more than the worst performer. You're selling their superhuman rock star ego short. In any event, it doesn't really matter because engineering managers should just hire the best fit for their team. The unicorns are rare and expensive and may not be the best fit compared to just a stallion who likes to run.