Comment by banannaise
3 years ago
10x engineers are a myth when it comes to productivity working within a team. There are absolutely 10x engineers when they're working on a project more or less completely solo.
3 years ago
10x engineers are a myth when it comes to productivity working within a team. There are absolutely 10x engineers when they're working on a project more or less completely solo.
There are 10x engineers on teams. They just empower everyone
Yeah, but that's also different from how people, especially management, tend to conceptualize 10x engineers. You don't spot the 10x engineer by looking for the one who accomplishes 10x what other engineers do. You spot them by looking for the team that's accomplishing 5x what other teams are, and then finding the "glue" person on that team.
When I look at 10x engineers who look like 10x engineers what I typically find instead is a 3x engineer leaving a path of destruction behind them. If you give everyone else impostor syndrome and difficult processes they slow down, and you look better than you are. Than you deserve.
The real heroes are the ones who make everyone else look better. But some managers only figure out who that is when they quit or when the business lays off the wrong guy because Steve produces less than Sarah, but that’s because Steve is helping people all the time, including Sarah.
I have met 10x engineers. They solve a problem in an hour that takes me all day and which someone else might never be able to solve. They identify and solve problems I couldn't even begin to tackle. In that sense, they're not really 10x but qualitatively superior.