3 ms·

I'm consistently baffled at why software engineering is the only engineering to obsess over a mythical "10x" contributor. Mechanical, electrical, civil, and che

I'm consistently baffled at why software engineering is the only engineering to obsess over a mythical "10x" contributor. Mechanical, electrical, civil, and chemical engineers do not have this concept. What makes an excellent engineer is risk mitigation and designing systems under a variety of possible constraints. This design is performed using models of the domains involved and understanding when and where these models hold and where they break down. There's no "10x". There is just being accountable for designing excellent systems to perform as desired. If there were a "10x" software engineer, such an engineer would prevent data breaches from occurring, which is a common failure mode in software to the detriment of society. I want to see 10x less of that.

mhuffman 1y ago
>Mechanical, electrical, civil, and chemical engineers do not have this concept. >What makes an excellent engineer is risk mitigation and designing systems under a variety of possible constraints. I take it that those fields also don't live by the "move fast and break things" motto?
YZF 1y ago
They might not have that concept but they absolutely have those people. I worked with many mechanical and electrical engineers building complex machines. Some people are just much better than others. This might not happen with more cookie-cutter work but any creative work in these domains absolute has 10x or even 100x engineers. That said collaboration really helps here, i.e. the good engineer can help others solve problems and be more productive then they'd be on their own. In software this seems to be harder for various reasons, one of which is that it's easier to demonstrate/see a good solution in the other domains but software tends to be a lot fuzzier.