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.
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.
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).
> 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.
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.
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.
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.