The 10x developer makes their whole team better

https://stackoverflow.blog/2024/06/19/the-real-10x-developer-makes-their-whole-team-better/

by kungfudoi • 2 years ago

38 22 2 years ago

Instead of an engineer who’s an order of magnitude “better” than their peers, leaders should look for people who are willing and able to learn—and to help their whole team learn and execute, too.

No. Build a whole team with people who willing to learn new stuff around that rock star.

mandymoorefan• 2 years ago

~~No.~~ Yes, but you should also ... . To maximize the impact they can have.

Narann• 2 years ago

To continue the analogy: Rock stars want to rock, not to teach music.

heavenlyblue• 2 years ago

Rock stars want to rock, not to teach music.

Even rock stars do not do that alone. Somebody has to put the equipment together, sell tickets, record their music, play bass.

abadpoli• 2 years ago

And yet if you want to build an empire of rock music, the person who teaches stars to rock is vastly more important than any one star.

Even the 5x dev who teaches just 2 others to be 5x devs is more impactful than the lone 10x dev that ignores their team, and always will be.

_gmax0• 2 years ago

I wonder if there's a strong positive correlation between periods of high Federal Fund Rates and periods of prevailing sentiment that espouses for 10x developers.

sjeneenee2• 2 years ago

If you have ever worked in no-tech IT sectors, such as financial institutions, you'll notice that the overal level of knowledge, even with senior developers, is limited, which makes someone who is just'good'very quickly a 10x developer. But it's not the 10x developer that is super good here, it's the other team members, who are just utter shit

znpy3• 2 years ago

Just to share somewhat of a "corollary" to this: if you get into one of such institutions, chances are there already is a "10x developer" and chances are those environments are the kind of environments where a few people (or maybe a single person) can monopolize the decision making process (because they are regarded as the 10x developer).

So think twice about pursuing such environments: very often it's not the other team members that are utter shit... Is that the "10x engineer" is making that work environment toxic and not worth staying for other "10x engineer" (but also for "15x engineers" and "35x engineers" who only lack the context about that specific domain).

So the logic is actually inverse: those environments very often will only retain a manipulative/toxic/narcissistic "10x engineer" and a bunch of people that are okay with doing whatever and getting the paycheck at the end of the month (and get, maybe wrongly, referred to as "utter shits").

Don't ask me how i know.

mbsa_cs• 2 years ago

This is making me reflect about my current work. Prior to reading this I used to think that our tech lead just happened to have the best ideas but now I’m just not sure anymore. Do they have the best ideas or did they master the politics necessary to push their ideas up the stack and everybody else doesn't care enough? I wonder…

sjeneenee2• 2 years ago

Interesting how developers who are just better than the average Joe instantly get labeled a narcesist

financltravsty2• 2 years ago

Corollary to this: if you find that there is one engineer monopolizing the entire decision-making process, perhaps it's because everyone else is utter shit, and said engineer is tired of having to deal with the insanity of maintaining non-sense thought up by mercurial incompetents without a semblance of technical ability? Perhaps these "toxic behaviors" are a coping strategy to deal with an organization that is woefully unskilled compared to said engineer? Perhaps the only way to necessitate one's career growth in such places is to wrangle what one would consider are actual toddlers, who simply do not care at all about the tech (incredibly common in non-tech orgs).

Perhaps said engineer would be happy to share the glory and fun work, if you made friends, demonstrated competency and initiative, and learned to play the (fucking) game?

_DeadFred_• 2 years ago

I was great in a crisis in dev/IT, and always said 'sure, we can do that', which got me to the top. You know who you want at the top? Not the person that thrives on crisis, but the person that hates it and goes to great length to ensure stability and prevent it. Luckily I realized that and empowered the guy I inherited who was on a 'PIP' plan because he was always the 'we can't do it', went too slow, let's think this through guy.

llmblockchain• 2 years ago

A 10x developer _is_ the team. Everyone else is collateral.

danlugo92• 2 years ago

No.

Slackers and juniors slow down 10x devs.

Making the team slower than if the 10x was alone.

The 10x developer makes their whole team better

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