How to Be a 10x Developer

https://chelseatroy.com/2020/12/18/how-to-be-a-10x-developer/

by mooreds • 6 years ago

44 42 6 years ago

ArcMex• 6 years ago

My workflow is just as simple.

1. Understand the problem and the solution. Figure out the best tools to use for it. Learn just what I need for version 1 if necessary.

2. Implement version 1. It works. It's ugly. But it's efficient. It's my MVP and I can get by with it if other duties call.

3. Observe what's truly missing. Add to knowledge base and improve the solution. Refine. Test. Refine. Deploy.

4. Document everything.

I used to be the kind of guy who read whole books to implement something because I had FOMO. Now I focus my energy on what I need to solve the problem. During downtime, I might expand my overall knowledge because it's necessary or I'm curious.

Am I a 10x dev? I don't think so. But I like where I am at and always want to improve.

KarimDaghari2• 6 years ago

I first learned this from Tim Ferris (btw, that guy isn’t full of it he actually gives out some good stuff) : it’s better to learn things JIT (just in time) than JIC (just in case).

AlwaysRock2• 6 years ago

He isnt always full of it. I'd say for every 7 useful things he shares there are 3 useless things.

macjohnmcc• 6 years ago

There are some labels developers use today that sound like a need to validate themselves. Is this a result of a competitive environment or a time when everybody gets a trophy? I'd like to understand this one.

waynesonfire• 6 years ago

I feel like the meat of your post is in the "Refine. Test. Refine. Deploy" section that you glossed over. Everybody starts at (1); they may arrive at (2) with different levels of how much knowledge they've acquired. You're purporting that minimal should be acquired. At (3) is when you start to get in trouble because you don't always know what you don't know.

There is no right or wrong answer here I guess. It's just what aligns with your goals, how you've prioritized things and what makes you happy.

matthewhartmans• 6 years ago

This is the definition of a smart working developer and should be the gold standard.

narag• 6 years ago

Just don't be a 0.1 developer. Since there are so many of those, wasting their time writing blog posts or mindlessly reading social media, it's easy to be a 10 dev.

KarimDaghari2• 6 years ago

wasting their time writing blog posts

Mind expanding on this?

cjsawyer• 6 years ago

If you’re writing blog posts then you’re not spending the time working on your projects.

AlwaysRock2• 6 years ago

Insightful blog posts can make a 1x developer become a 1000x developer due to their ability to reach large audiences.

corytheboyd• 6 years ago

The anti-blog sentiment on HN is strange, considering that a large volume of the content I like comes from good blog posts. I know it’s not everyone, but you see a bit of the herd mentality with words like “blog spam” getting thrown around.

_y5hn• 6 years ago

I thought blog spam were those short articles designed to capture SEO traffic about generic terms, offering little new substance or deep insights. They often read more like PR and white papers, than providing practical content beyond the simplest tutorial.

zug_zug2• 6 years ago

Whatever, linkbait and exhausted discussion. The idea that there's some universal rule for productivity is trivial to disprove, it's going to be a function of the environment you find yourself in.

You'll find some companies where the most effective use of your time is building, because everybody else plans. You'll find some companies where the most effective use of your time is tooling. You'll find companies where the most effective use of your time is doing product work. You'll find companies where the most effective use of your time is challenging the business status quo.

dahart2• 6 years ago

linkbait and exhausted discussion.

Did you assume that, and avoid clicking the link? It doesn’t suggest a universal rule for productivity, and even starts by predicting your reaction: “It’s not a clickbait title, but I understand why it looks that way.”

it’s going to be a function of the environment you find yourself in.

The article agrees with you, and talks about some specific ways to be a force for good in creating that environment for yourself and for those around you. Is it perhaps worth a quick glance before jumping to conclusions?

zug_zug2• 6 years ago

Did you assume that, and avoid clicking the link? It doesn’t suggest a universal rule for productivity, and even starts by predicting your reaction: “It’s not a clickbait title, but I understand why it looks that way.”

No, I read it, and regretted reading it, and figured I should save others the trouble. I specifically called it out as baity because it claims not to be, which is ludicrous, because it's a meandering piece that isn't really saying much ("try boneheaded solutions") of anything, seems like a mix of generalities, caveats, and self-promotion.

I'd challenge you to ask yourself this -- Is there even the slightest chance that anybody who reads this article is going to become 10x as productive from this "technique"?

If not, then that seems the definition of linkbait.

sneak• 6 years ago

I think that someone who produces 10x as much code as someone else has left a wake of destruction that will slow down other developers. I don’t think 10x counts if you achieve it by slowing down everyone else. I think 10x has to take into account how you impact other people.

A 10x developer doesn't (usually) write 10x as much code. They get 10x the work done in 1x of the time. The quantity of work output is famously not measured in SLOC.

I've had the pleasure to work with a few. We all know the names of most of the dozen of 25x or 50x developers that exist in the world.

I think this person is writing to their preordained conclusion that the idea of a 10x developer is a myth. It's not.

dvh• 6 years ago

Exactly. 10x developer solves problem 10x faster. Loc is stupid metric for this.

mikkergp• 6 years ago

I think they don’t just solve the problem faster, but over time they’re more likely to solve the right problems in the right ways. It’s not “here’s a programming problem, I’m going to start a stopwatch go!” It’s over the past year you’ve had 10x the impact.

6510• 6 years ago

as a <1x developer I create most of the problems myself.

glued• 6 years ago

Agreed, and I've seen way more instances of developers who have no idea what they're doing, not interested in learning, and actually leaving a wake of destruction.

TimTheTinker• 6 years ago

Agreed. I also had the pleasure of working for several years with a "10x" developer where "x" roughly describes "meaningful work done".

He was brilliant, probably slightly autistic, spoke multiple (human) languages fluently (that he had taught himself, not grown up speaking or learned in school), and easily wrote 500-1000 lines of great code per day (not that that's the metric, but that's what I'd see when running `git pull`), implementing feature requirements in a front-end web application. His work truly had a "wow" factor. Give him a very big job that would take the average 4-person team more than 6 months, and it would be done in less than a month.

As a senior developer on that team, I quickly learned that the best use of my time was to remove roadblocks and streamline his workflow.

I worked across from him in an office for a couple of weeks one time, and was impressed at how focused and disciplined he was -- more than anyone else I ever saw. Every moment of the work day he was scrolling and typing into his editor. A quick break every few hours, and then back to work.

type0• 6 years ago

here's more to the point article instead: The mythical 10x programmer

http://antirez.com/news/112

randomdata• 6 years ago

Become a manager. Find 10 people who are able to consistently perform at their peak 1x capacity to work for you.

tehjoker• 6 years ago

Here is the only algorithm you need to know:

1) identify the most important problem you're facing 2) solve it somehow

If you get better at your craft, you can get better at #2 as you'll understand the costs and benefits of different approaches and how to accomplish them.

You may wish to select an environment that makes use of your skills vs one that uses skills you don't care about.

burade• 6 years ago

Ugh.

10x developers are usually people who have the lucky combination of:

-Having a close family member who understands computers

-Programming since 9 years old

-Naturally high IQ

-Decent emotional development and communication skills

phist_mcgee• 6 years ago

We should just refer to them as well-rounded software developers then

kelvin0• 6 years ago

Are there artificially high IQs? As opposed to a 'naturally' high IQ?

Also missing from you list: - Hard work? - Dedication? - A 'can do' attitude?

In the end it's easy to remove yourself from the race by rationalizing that since you don't have the 'lucky' ingredients you mention, it's not even worth trying.

That would be unfortunate...

oarabbus_2• 6 years ago

Yes, and 10x basketball players usually have a lucky combination of:

-6'+

-Having a close family member who is an athlete

-Playing sports since 9

-Naturally athletic physique

-Decent cooperative and competitiveness

I only meet 2 of those and 6'+ is definitely not one of them, but I don't avoid basketball because I'll never be as good as a "10x" basketball player (probably NCAA D1 level, Euroleague). In fact, I play often, and years of that have made me an at least serviceable player.

What I'm saying is maybe you'll never be a 10x dev (I won't be) and a large part could be because you don't have the traits you mentioned - which in my experience, definitely describes most of the 10x types I know. but hard work over time can get any person of average talent to at least a 2x or 3x dev (or basketball player). So there is no reason to beat yourself up if you aren't Einstein. A person is competing with themselves.

_carbyau_• 6 years ago

Anyone can only play with the cards the were dealt. The trick is making the most of them.

tonystubblebine• 6 years ago

Tangential point that I think is important is to realize that 10x work is very contextual to how you frame a job.

People are talented but they often aren't asked to do very much. Most jobs don't give all that much responsibility and even then they weigh you down with oversight and meetings.

So, in those jobs, one of the hallmarks of a 10x performer is someone who rejects that baggage. A lot of 10x performers are kind of jerks where they stand up to the status quo and choose their own path. That sort of job is setup to select for only 10x performers who are also willing rebels.

But... many times that I've given more responsibility to someone I've ended up seeing them perform better and more than anywhere else in their career. I think that's nothing more complicated than that people have a lot of untapped talent. Roughly, I'd say if you asked all of the people you worked with to do 10x work that half of them would be able to.

tobyhinloopen• 6 years ago

I only know 0.1 developers or even -1x developers, but I can’t imagine a developer being 10 times faster than the average experienced developer.

Sometimes there are just no magic solutions.

twblalock• 6 years ago

I never saw productivity as a function of raw speed of churning out code. Some of the most productive engineers I know are about average at coding. They just seem to know how to perceive which areas of work would have the most impact, and focus on them. They are also generally experienced enough to avoid pitfalls, both technical and organizational.

The few engineers I know who approach 10x productivity have done so by building tooling that helps all the other engineers do their jobs easier.

kraftman• 6 years ago

well if there are enough 0.1x developers then the 1x developers are 10x developers really!

baron816• 6 years ago

Has there been much written on the culture that led Shekhar Kirani (the author of the infamous thread) to such conclusions about 10x devs? I’m curious about how software development is different in places outside of SV—I’m not prepared to cast any judgments of my own.

rcurry• 6 years ago

When I was coding full time I always followed a simple principal: if you really love this system and want it to succeed even after you leave the company, then keep it as simple as possible - sure, you could condense those ten lines into some unintelligible masterpiece, but right now they could be understood by any other developer, and if you really want that code to live a long life then just make sure there’s no barrier to entry for the next person who maintains it. If they’re junior, they’ll still be able to maintain it and if they’re a rock star they’ll get what you were up to.

tomaszs• 6 years ago

I love to improve on every aspect of programming. On every field you can become 10 times better and combined it is just awesome to be able to provide solutions that defend against changes.

For example lately I have created VSCode extension to show myself messages with things I don't remember or that help me code without Googling all the time.

The result is great because coding is much much faster and streamlined.

The extension name is Assistant: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=tomasz-s...

But also there are other areas to pursue 10x speed. For example navigating in an organization, getting necessary information fast, vetting ideas fast with client and team. Going for good solutions rather than partial ones. I love programming for that. You can become better and better all the time. And when everything clicks, nothing can replace that feeling!

Bancakes• 6 years ago

How to be 10x as productive for 1.5x the salary.

How to Be a 10x Developer

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