I prefer to use this scale: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/the-trajectory-of-a-software-engineer-and-where-it-all-goes-wrong/ http://michaelochu

I prefer to use this scale: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/the-trajectory-of-a-software-engineer-and-where-it-all-goes-wrong/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/the-trajector... It's from 0.0 to 3.0, and the vast majority of professional programmers are in the 1.0 to 1.9 range. I consider myself a 1.8 with a 95% confidence interval at [1.55, 1.95] (more room on the left, because inaccuracy in self-measurement would correspond with lower ability; cf. Dunning-Kruger). The 1.0 level is basic professional competence-- you could get hired to write bank software. What most people call "10X" is 1.7-2.0, but there are so many contextual factors that it's hard to say how it really plays out. In some jobs, the 2.0 is worth 100 times more than the 1.0; in others, she's only worth 50% more; in still others, she's worth less than a 1.0 because she'll fight the existing way of doing things.