As a software engineer, I agree with you 100%. But you are likely aware that this type of 10x engineer is not who the vast majority of corporate managers and "

As a software engineer, I agree with you 100%. But you are likely aware that this type of 10x engineer is not who the vast majority of corporate managers and "non-technical" start-up founders are thinking of when they describe a 10x engineer. For them, a 10x engineer is simply one who produces code 10x as fast as the other engineers. In fact, simply writing code 10x as fast as usual is not a difficult task for a competent developer to accomplish. With significant overtime, and reckless abandon, any skilled developer can churn out poorly thought-out code at a rate roughly 10x greater than the rate at which a skilled developer can write well-designed, tested, documented, refactored code. This is why we have so many "10x" engineers, and so much technical debt.