Forget 10x Developer – Become Full X Developer

https://maxpower.substack.com/p/full-x

by high_byte • 5 years ago

36 65 5 years ago

maxpower.substack.com

m463• 5 years ago

just off the top of my head...

the multiplier is much higher if you're on the project from the beginning: you have more choices, more history, your code

some factors that can lower the multiplier: - working with other people's code - working "in the middle" of the problem - more abstract - sometimes unclear what people will do with your code, sometimes unclear what layers below you are doing.

sometimes it can become a divisor when: - unmaintained old old code - more obscure languages or hardware - unclear problems or direction

high_byte13• 5 years ago

great point. so far I explored the individual developer's perspective. perhaps I should take a shot at analyzing productivity of teams next!

justicezyx2• 5 years ago

I disagree with this narrative.

10x developers are about efficiency, in that they are able to produces code that has effects that is vastly more impactful than the organization average, and at the same time, these activities are done in equal amount of time as others.

If someone has a long history on a project, by definition, he/she can only achieve 10x because of others were effectively handicaped. That's the point in case from the article: 10x dev in this context should be the one who either built a system is so simple that newcomers easily onboard and contributed as good as anyone can be; or he has done a great job of organize the code base, docs, and organization structure, in such a way that newcomers can quickly get grasp of the parts that they are working on; and can quickly get the information needed when new work assignments coming in.

username906• 5 years ago

You missed the point. The best dev in the world will be slow if he has to work with a huge mess created by many bad devs over a decade. However if the best dev in the world got to create his own architecture and compete with the people working on the mess he can beat a team of hundreds depending on the domain.

MrPowers• 5 years ago

This article hinges on the "productivity is subjective" argument, which isn't true in all cases. There are objective measures for certain types of productivity: library downloads, Stackoverflow points, blog views, GitHub stars.

I see developers adding high value features to the Apache Spark codebase that's used by hundreds of thousands of people. The top Apache Spark Stackoverflow question responder has hundreds of thousands of points (their answers are always the best).

Some folks build libraries that get thousands of downloads a day.

There are even popularity gauges that can be used for internal projects. Who is building the code that everyone is using and who is building stuff that gets thrown out.

This article also makes the fallacy of equating productivity with working hours. Working hours + productivity are correlated (top Spark devs seem to work constantly), but I also see people that work really hard and can't get traction for any of their open source / internal projects.

The power law is at play in software. A relatively small number of developers write the code that gets used the most. Yea, that might not be true for a given web app, but it's definitely the case for software overall.

amelius• 5 years ago

The power law is at play in software. A relatively small number of developers write the code that gets used the most.

Yes, but there is another law: if X doesn't write a certain library with basic functionality, then Y will.

So your law translates to: we all use the same libraries for our basic needs. The question is, does it mean anything?

Scarblac• 5 years ago

Even so, it's often not the developer who gets to decide who writes what.

eptcyka2• 5 years ago

I think there are far more truly productive developers than there are people with popular blogs, many a github star or SO points. Of course, these are indicators of productivity, but I feel these metrics are too specific.

high_byte13• 5 years ago

This article hinges on the "productivity is subjective" argument, which isn't true in all cases. There are objective measures for certain types of productivity: library downloads, Stackoverflow points, blog views, GitHub stars. Lines of Code is not a measurement, why would lib downloads be? Remember the time some 30-line JS lib who just does "split" or something like that was removed and it broke the Internet? heavily relied on - yes (ie heavily downloaded), highly productive? doubtful.

You are referring popularity, which sure is part of the sum output of you as a person, but this article is meant to reference purely development productivity. Marketing or whatever is beyond scope. Maybe next post!

(popularity gauge != productivity gauge)

theamk2• 5 years ago

Maybe I am being pedantic here, but “x” in “10x” developer doesn't mean “variable” at all - it mean “ multiplication” as taught in school. Compare to “10x binoculars”.

But even to the point of the post, this seems to imply that some developers are not as productive as others because they eat, sleep, and play xbox. You just have to stop doing this and you’d be super productive!

This seems very silly and dangerous idea. A person can only spend a few hours a day doing “hard thinking”. Striving to always be maximally productive, day after day, will only lead to burnout.

Tade02• 5 years ago

I don't think 10x developers actually exist - there are just some people who happened to have good, original ideas. It's more art than science at this point as there's no clear path to achieving this status, just like there is no clear path to winning the International Chopin Piano Competition.

But I've met 2x developers, where "x" is your average corporate code monkey such as me in my current role or my teammates, whose children/spouses don't seem to be at peace with the concept of their family member working from home.

I know three people who at the moment are working two jobs. What they have in common is the uncanny ability to squeeze out 8h of focused work a day.

I've measured my ability in this regard and best I can do is 4h of taking orders from other people on a given day. It appears to be enough to maintain employment for now.

mordymoop2• 5 years ago

Most engineers are 0.1x engineers, just trying to remain employed while browsing a lot of HN. Then there are 1x engineers using the rare skill of actually trying reasonably hard and having discipline. (These 1x engineers may eventually experience a significant life disruption, mental or physical illness, or simply lose the feeling of meaning from the work, and subsequently become 0.1x engineers temporarily or permanently.) There may be actual 10x engineers for short stretches. I may have been something like this for a short period in grad school when I was obsessed, skilled, healthy and knowledgeable all at the same time. But I’m certainly not anymore.

throw140820203• 5 years ago

But I’m certainly not anymore.

Can you explain why, and what you would do differently?

high_byte13• 5 years ago

I can relate to you the most in this entire thread. Firstly, it makes sense saying 2x when comparing to other, hence that is (1)x. Second, I feel you about working from home. You and your family, stay strong. And lastly, that is truly a feat beyond being a skillful programmer. Having total mental control over yourself, that's just Zen to me, and it applies to way more than programming.

valbaca2• 5 years ago

My pet peeve is the incorrect definition of the "10x dev"

The "10xDev" is one that's 10 times more effective than the least effective developer; NOT 10x the average dev nor 10x the median dev.

The 10x is the absolute best versus the absolute worst.

It's not the good vs the bad.

Honestly there's no surprise here. What field doesn't have such a major difference between the most talented vs the least talented? The discussion is overblown.

From Peopleware:

"Count on the best people outperforming the worst by about 10:1"

"Count on the best performer being about 2.5 times better than the median performer"

"Count on the half that are better-than-median performers out-doing the other half by more than 2:1"

Most "10x dev" articles should really be using "2.5x" if they're comparing the best with the median. Again, a 2.5x difference between the good and the bad is again, not surprising.

It's also worth noting that the study Peopleware uses is from 1985 and sampled about 600 devs. The amount of pixels spilled over this basically ancient software study is honestly hilarious.

Tade02• 5 years ago

The "10xDev" is one that's 10 times more effective than the least effective developer; NOT 10x the average dev or 10x the median dev.

What about people who have negative effectiveness?

codemac• 5 years ago

Or who have positive effectiveness when looking solely at their production, but negative effectiveness of the team or company's production?

dolni• 5 years ago

A friend of mine has used the phrase "activity != productivity" before. I think it fits these kinds of people well.

high_byte13• 5 years ago

i^2 dev!!! hahaha

CharlesW• 5 years ago

The "10xDev" is one that's 10 times more effective than the least effective developer; NOT 10x the average dev nor 10x the median dev.

If it were typical to interpret "10X developer" that way, a new extremely unproductive developer would instantly make everyone else on the team 10X developers. (Personally, I've always considered it "10X the median developers productivity".)

high_byte13• 5 years ago

I have to disagree on that one. because in practice, the difference between min and max would be several order of magnitudes larger than 10. (IMO)

I did consider mentioning average or median, but of one self over different times rather than comparing different people.

As others mentioned, 10x is symbolic not to be taken literally, and I have not done a study to feel comfortable with the number 2.5x (as I said, I personally don't agree with this number)

btw, I'm looking up that study. do you mean "Peopleware - Productive Projects and Teams"?

valbaca2• 5 years ago

Yes. Chapter 8. Pulls from several studies. See Notes, page 229

SahAssar• 5 years ago

The "10xDev" is one that's 10 times more effective than the least effective developer; NOT 10x the average dev nor 10x the median dev.

I'm pretty sure that very few have this definition of the term.

username906• 5 years ago

Those studies just gave already filtered people a small project and only measured the students who actually completed the project.

So, problems with those studies which would imply that the difference is bigger in the real world:

1. Filtering means that the population was more homogeneous than real world populations.

2. Talent matters more the larger project you work on as a very big part of being fast is designing good abstractions to simplify the problem.

3. Not counting people who didn't complete the project means that we remove the long tail of worst developers. If you do include the worst developers productivity which was 0 then it isn't 10x, it is infinite x.

theamk2• 5 years ago

I don’t think this is is true.

Imagine accidentally hiring someone who cannot program. Does that mean the entire team is suddenly 10x people?

jasode• 5 years ago

To submitter/author high_byte,

You're analyzing "10x" with math because you're being too literal. I've commented before that it's just a rhetorical label that rolls off the tongue easily: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13753178

And if you still can't make peace with "10x", it still doesn't change the fact that people want to label/categorize the amazing programmers like Linus Torvalds, Fabrice Bellard, etc. -- that set themselves apart from average: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24753594

darkhorse132• 5 years ago

Fully agreed. I was always under the impression that "10x" was just a way of labeling insanely gifted engineers with enormous outputs compared to the rest of us. Taking it literally and writing an article with math equations is missing the point (in my opinion).

high_byte13• 5 years ago

my intention was for people to set attainable goals for themselves. not to interpret "10x" literally, or mathematically. I did use it figuratively, such that if x = 10%, then you get 100%. I do appreciate the feedback as it helps me formalizing my thoughts in the future.

high_byte13• 5 years ago

excellent viewpoint. I can agree with a lot of it, here's my take on it:

It doesn't matter what the label is; any label that attempts to stratify programmers is a "myth".

I can agree with this, but the thing is this is true regarding anything nowadays, whatever you say someone, somewhere will find displeasing. the "10x" label however, to my argument, is "10x" worse than other labels such as "star". perhaps you don't take this phrase too literally, but it does sort of "quantify" in people's mind the concept of 1000% productivity, which can be interpreted as unattainable.

my goal is to let people accept their mortality - there is some output you can produce which is optimal, 100% or so. it is much more rational to think your output is 10% and you can progress from there. at least in my mind, it is discouraging to say "your 100% is still not nearly enough"

I guess the point is - rhetoric speak matters.

p.s. I just love sigma-3 programmer. can I get to sigma-5? ;)

throw140820203• 5 years ago

Think the title is clickbaity? Wait till you read the article.

eptcyka2• 5 years ago

You'll never believe how clickbaity this article is!

high_byte13• 5 years ago

We Sampled The Top 10 Clickbaits So You Don't Have To, Click Here To Find Out!

tbrownaw• 5 years ago

I have no idea what this article is actually trying to say. Is it a "nothing actually means anything" sort of thing?

high_byte13• 5 years ago

hahaha made me chuckle. it is an attempt to bust the myth you have to be "10 times more", whatever that means, than your 100%. obviously you can't output 1000%. you can however, output 10% and improve 10 times than that. this is the first article in a series aimed to figure out exactly this.

908B64B197• 5 years ago

Reading the comments in the thread I think a lot of engineers never really encountered a real 10x before.

I was skeptical too before it happened, but after meeting and working with that person I was convinced.

My honest advice is simply to pay more if you want to attract them; These guys don't jump ship frequently and are often off the radar for extended periods of time (hints, they are getting internally promoted pretty fast). Especially now with remote being more socially acceptable it's pretty much the time to hire before these guys get locked-in with a vesting schedule.

high_byte13• 5 years ago

I am intrigued. can you elaborate? what made them so, in your opinion?

romanovcode• 5 years ago

These guys don't jump ship frequently and are often off the radar for extended periods of time (hints, they are getting internally promoted pretty fast)

I think Full X developer has exactly the same work-path TBH. If a person knows (and I mean really knows) front-end, back-end, databases, devops and has some people skills he will be promoted crazy fast.

segmondy• 5 years ago

This. Folks can agree that there's 10x in everything. Banksy is 20x artist. Tony Hawk is 20x skateboarder. Yo-yo Ma is 20x Cellist. We can find exceptional folks in every field, and then there are folks who are really 10x. Everyone knows easily the 20x in computing. We can easily recognize Donald Knuth, Peter Norvig, etc as 10x+ computer scientist..

Don't think that folks will also argue that Jeff Dean, Fabrice Bellard, John Carmack, Linus, Dennis Ritchie, Jamie Zawinksi, Brian Kernighan, Ken Thompson, Bill Joy, Donald Knuth, Dan Berstein, Brad Fitzpatrick, Doug Cutting, Rob Pike, Joe Armstrong are 20x programmers.

Yet 10x and most people get upset, and you're very correct because they haven't met those. I have met one, and it wasn't about pay, they worked in an average non tech city, they got paid average salary. They loved the work tho, and cranked out almost as much work as everyone else in a department of around 15 folks.

darkhorse132• 5 years ago

Do you think this is because of ego? These days, it seems like if you even suggest that some people are born with more natural talent for computer engineering, you get skeptical responses. And from personal experience, these skeptical responses generally argue how productivity can not be measured properly, or how production contribution is somehow offset by deficits in other areas (interpersonal, team work), so it evens out, etc.

Personally, I have seen the Pareto principle play out in many a software project to be sure that these mythical 10x engineers are, in fact, very much real.

valand• 5 years ago

Ego would be an oversimplification.

Skepticism is usually mind's main working mode of those that most of the time working in logical things. Most engineers are in this group. They whitelist good incoming informations, not blacklist bad informations.

Such a person, if they previously understand thee fact-sets A,B,C will be alerted unconsciously when fact-set D is introduced and it coincidentally contradict (not contrary) A. (Both A and B are set of facts)

"10Xs don't exist because among 1000 people I work with I haven't encountered 10x" where their own 10x definition itself may be muddled.

Such an alert is normal in skeptic mode, and lingering in the skeptic mode for too long might trigger that alert in subconscious, creating a feeling "This new information is false, I know it, but I can't trace how"

While it is counter-productive, we can't blame them to be skeptical subconsciously. Because it is human.

It is most important to constantly challenge one's subconscious, to put feelings under scrutiny to see if it's valid under current circumstances or not.

heimatau• 5 years ago

IMHO, the truth of a 10x tradesman/tradeswoman is very real.

I point to the pareto distribution to reaffirm it. I've seen some workers that fly through tasks (construction tasks, programming, managerial, etc) and they hold the wind to the sails. But depending on a situation, 10x doesn't remain for indefinite amount of time in a majority cases (maybe pareto is a fractal of some time or it's recursive?).

If one has ever seen the 1950s video of someone putting up drywall [1], I'd put that worker in the 10x category (I worked construction for a while, few workers even today could keep up with this man from the 1950s).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8fZLM5S_ds

bigmattystyles• 5 years ago

If you're a 10x developer and you're getting paid the same per hour you're really a 10x sucker. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for taking pride in your work and doing a good job well, but if the 1x engineer is getting his stuff done and spending less of their life at work then your priorities are all wrong.

Geminidog4• 5 years ago

Another day another programming metaphor/analogy on HN.

It's like the quotation "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get." Yeah I already knew life is random, comparing it to another random thing only makes the quotation seem insightful when in reality nothing substantial was actually said.

HN is loaded with variations of programming/management metaphors.

high_byte13• 5 years ago

where else do programming metaphors supposed to go when they are born?

naniwaduni2• 5 years ago

Do people not read the labels on their boxes of chocolate??

Geminidog4• 5 years ago

https://www.sees.com/chocolate/assortments

Forest Gump said that quote. He's referring to these box's of chocolates where each candy contains some filling that's pretty much unknown until you eat it.

TruthWillHurt• 5 years ago

What is this bullshit...

kokanee• 5 years ago

I am an X Dev Series S

cccc4all• 5 years ago

I’m going to guess the author has never met or worked with 10X developer, or Rockstar developer, or Ninja developer or many other previous incarnations.

It’s not about mathematical equations or lines of code or some superficial numerical value. Although, side effects of such developers can result in some numerical improvements.

It’s about impact in the project and development team. Being effective and productive in the field.

Techlead has a humorous, and mostly correct take on 10X engineer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iydpa_gPdes

bobbydreamer• 5 years ago

X's most time depend on environment as well meaning computer has to be fast with resource available to support.

X1. Resource constraints : office and home all windows and most times chrome kills.

X2. Analysis killer : To analyse either run a query or batch job. It takes ridiculous amount of time

X3. Sequencing mess up : Due to priority order of planned events in workday change which leads to frustration

X4. Meetings you attend inplace of others.

X5. Adhoc request or query you need to attend now.

Most the time be prepared to be 10x and one day when you get a chance and everything aligns. Go play...

Forget 10x Developer – Become Full X Developer

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