
Getting to 10x (Results): What Any Developer Can Learn from the Best - theBashShell
https://medium.com/javascript-scene/getting-to-10x-results-what-any-developer-can-learn-from-the-best-54b6c296a5ef
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jblow
Be very careful from whom you take advice. If someone is not themselves 10x,
it's unlikely that what they have to say is accurate or valuable.

The actual content of this article seems to be "we polled people who work on
software, and they used positive adjectives to describe people they liked, and
negative adjectives to describe people they didn't like". Then it ends with an
advertisement for the author.

What any of this has to do with being objectively good at the discipline of
programming, I have no idea.

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pps43
Looks very superficial.

There is an implicit assumption that developer skill is scalar and transitive.
If Alice is better than Bob, then Alice is better than Bob at everything. If
Alice is better than Bob, and Bob is better than Charlie, then Alice is better
than Charlie. This may be true in a narrow niche or for a specific skill, but
does not hold in general.

Then there's little to substantiate the claim that "Simply deciding to become
a 10x developer will give you a huge advantage over the competition." Sounds
like a slogan from the self-help section of a book store.

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maxxxxx
I think with "10x developer" we mean somebody who does not only does things 10
times as fast but also does things differently to achieve this.

I think the number one prerequisite is to be in an environment where you
actually can shine. You need a lot of autonomy to be a 10x developer and you
also need an audience/management that recognizes good work. A lot of companies
prefer average devs and predictable outcomes over excellent work.

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scarface74
In a lot of software projects, a “10x developer” if they exist, would be
overkill unless they literally could type 10 times faster. For your yet
another SASS CRUD app a lot of times, you just need a lot of coders and one or
two architects to keep everything consistent.

Most companies don’t need to “hire only the best”.

~~~
jblow
[http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html)

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confounded
The ‘10x’ meme needs to die.

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jblow
Why? The difference between average programmers and the best ones is actually
much higher than 10x.

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scarface74
When most managers talk about the “10x developer” they are thinking a
developer who can single handedly produce 10x as much code.

I do agree with part of the article. The best way to be a 10x developer is to
be a force multiplier.

I consider myself a capable architect. I can do front end (barely), back end
development, database administration, devops/netops (with AWS), talk to
customers, create presentations, strategize with CxOs and lead teams. I have
at some point in the recent past done all of it.

When I was the dev lead, I was very much a {some multiplier} developer but
only because I could mentor and guide other developers, Devops and to a lesser
extent QA. My resume of things that I could honestly say “I led” or
spearheaded in a short amount of time was pretty impressive.

On the other hand, I purposefully self demoted got another job at a smaller
company where any given day I’m wearing one of those hats - developer,
software architect, Devops or AWS infrastructure architect.

But as an individual contributor who spends at most 20% of my time mentoring,
I’m nowhere near the force multiplier I use to be. Anytime I am playing the
role of the “multi certified AWS Architect” to clients, or spending time
talking to customers as the “software architect responsible for X”. I’m not
developing. My value add over having multiple people having those roles is
only the time saved on communication overhead and hopefully I don’t do too
much “negative work”.

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jblow
Force multipliers are definitely a thing, but I think that's a different
thing. You can have both at the same time.

