Growing as an engineer: The reality and misconception of 10x engineers The common description of a 10x engineer is one that’s extremely efficient, that can produce ten times more work than a normal engineer – these exist in specific areas. For example I would expect an engineer that specialized in JVM performance to be 10 times (if not more) more efficient than me when it comes to debugging such performance issues (since I have neither the knowledge nor the tools at my disposal). I think it’s more interesting to define these 10x engineers through their impact instead. This is possible as soon as you work in large engineering organizations. For example if an engineer makes 100 engineers 10% more efficient (e.g. by making the dev loop 10% faster), their net impact is the same as hiring 10 engineers, so they technically have ten times the impact of one engineer. There are engineers that are paid 10 times more than others, and while it might be an effect of the job market, I think these are mostly paid a lot because of their impact through other engineers – not because of their actual code/design throughput. The most important part of this post is that 10x engineers aren’t isolated engineers. They aren’t your selfish engineer hiding in a dark room writing code. They are the ones that share their knowledge, promote better tools and up-level their whole engineering org. They are the ones you should work and learn from – and my experience is that they’ll happily help you grow. Have you met such engineers? How was your experience working with them? hashtag #softwareengineering #10x #productivity #growing #seniorengineer
There is such a thing as 10x developers and yes it is not that they produce 10x more code, or that they solve things 10x faster. They might be fast in those but the important part is the multiplier effect they have in the organization which then might move really faster than the normal sum of the parts. Then again a 10x dev might work well on certain orgs and be negated on a different one. We could have many 10xers and by bad processes, bad management or any other unfortunate condition be wasting a lot of potential. It might be that there is not sufficient work for all of them at the same time. Also it is likely that they don't know they are 10x developers.
Abed Islam
7mo
Sounds like the engineer is a social force given they would have to know others’ pain points and have the buy in that their work would be adopted. I’ve done these kinds of things with and without buy in, the latter situation is… rough to say the least. I would add foresight as a trait as well. For example such an engineer might get push back like hey this tool is going away so don’t invest the time to make things better for other people. If they know that’s not going to happen and push forward anyway, it’s a bold move. Or for example predicting to invest less or more time in the quality of code based on how short, long, or far it might continue to be of use. I feel this is an immensely valuable trait to have.
Thanks for bringing up the '10x engineer' subject. I've never thought along these lines, but while exhibiting leadership roles over a decade, I came across several engineers who are smart and quick in thinking, coding, debugging, and overall execution. They not only work 'n times' faster than others but also act as a 'catalyst' to improve the team's techno-dynamics nature! They work with speed and accuracy and do it consistently. They keep honing their skills and motivate others to challenge their limitations. They are different. They are flexible. Moreover, they are not only technically proficient; they also focus on improving their soft skills. We always need such people in our organizations. #smartengineer #catalystengineer #softskills #softskillsmatter #teamcollaboration #smartthinking #technodynamics
Andrew Burns
7mo
10x engineers aren't fictional. But in practice, when someone has the skills and knowledge to be 10x, that same engineer can have a greater impact by helping teams of 1-3x engineers become 2-4x engineers. And between meetings and design and collaboration, it's very, very rare that a 10x engineer spends more than 10% of their time actually writing code.
Jonathan Sneed
7mo
In my experience it’s less about what they do and more about what they don’t do.
There seems to me to be a lot of circumstances where this is the case.
Your screen is backwards and your 10x engineer is fictional