Ask HN: What distinguishes 10x engineers from 1-1.5x engineers?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40059828

3 7 2 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I think it's clear what easy things not to do to avoid being a 0.5x engineer, but in the tech world there's this hallowed reverence with regard to to these people. Is it aptitude, speed, organization, communication skill?

What really is it that makes these people just so much more valuable?

swesour• 2 years ago

- An allergy to complexity

- Appreciation for software craftsmanship and a hunger to constantly learn how to write better software

- Does not follow dogma, but instead understands when to strategically apply or not apply certain processes and tools

- T shaped knowledge graph that's ever growing

- A strong intuition for what actually provides end-user value, but also pays attention to and cares about the finer details that most overlook

kazinator• 2 years ago

Only in a peer-reviewed-commit environment does a 10X programmer have to shun complexity, as a necessary strategy to get their commits (of which there are many) merged as quickly as possible.

dylanhassinger• 2 years ago

proactive work ethic

racional• 2 years ago

It does seem to to be highly contextual. Certain people seem to have traits which are highly synergistic with certain very specific (sometimes effectively unique) roles. In other roles they might be a mere 2x or a 0.5x or (by their own admission) worse than that.

But to the extent that nuanced sensibilities matter, I would add (alongside the sibling post):

- An ability to think about things intrinsically, combined with a hidebound indifference to hype, trends and groupthink of any sort.

- And synthetically, across disparate areas such as product design, usability, economics, social context, etc.

- A certain appetite for risk when it is most beneficial (e.g. in spotting people who have significant potential but who don't fit the expected mold); and correspondingly, a distinct aversion to risk in areas where it matters most (e.g. backups, unethical behavior, etc).

pestatije• 2 years ago

Myth of the 10x developer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1LnYLp-2qg

dswilkerson2• 2 years ago

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/362851.362858

"Exploratory Experimental Studies Comparing Online and Offline Programming Performance" by Sackman, Erikson, and Grant. Communications of the ACM. January 1968.

dswilkerson2• 2 years ago

One thing I and other programmers do that increases productivity is to write a programming language specific to the task. In particular, it allows the programmer to factor out a cross-cutting concern as a language feature.

Ask HN: What distinguishes 10x engineers from 1-1.5x engineers?

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