Hacker News Reader

Comment by n_ary | Hacker News Reader

What are the common "safe" traits of a 10x developer?

So far everyone I have met with traits like - produces working feature/code faster than anyone else - delivers stable massive projects on time - can carry a whole team through fire and hell - praised to produce masterpiece*

Are the same people everytime who are just - good at playing office politics - are excellent at cutting major corners - knows when their project will fall apart and leaves before - are in league with upper management, so can't callout

I have yet to met a real developer who when left team/project/job didn't leave a massive trail of destruction but up until they were present everything was a-ok-top.

May be someday I aspire to meet one, but so far, most pseudo 10x are just people knowing how to play right politics and hide the skeletons really well :(

View on HN

This is a complete guess just based off my experience, but I know a couple of devs I'd bet on to 10x the worst of the devs I've worked with (over a long sample period), and the one thing they have in common is that they keep their code simple moreso than the average dev does.

One part of that is they all seem to err on the side of less code (including dependencies) over quicker implementations. The other part is a few times I've shot them a piece of code and they've come back with something simpler that I've overlooked. I.e they seem to have good fundamentals, good algorithm knowledge, good understanding of the language etc.

It makes sense to me, because I think this is the only vector you can 10x somebody in. You can't generally 10x somebody early in a greenfield project because everyone is smashing out work. You can't 10x somebody in a hellish project like in the OP because everyone is struggling with the same cruft. The only way you can really 10x somebody over a big sample size is by keeping every project you work on simpler for longer.

So that's what I look for when I'm looking for 10x devs. I might be completely wrong but it's the best indicator I've found yet.

You can absolutely beat people in greenfield projects with experience; choosing and designing business data structures optimally so that not a lot has to be refactored.

I don't really buy into the idea of attributing "x speed" to a developer, the idea is trying to oversimplify what is really a function of experience in- and the complexity of current task

> I have yet to met a real developer who when left team/project/job didn't leave a massive trail of destruction

Consider yourself lucky. The ones where this doesn’t happen with are the ones that simply don’t contribute and are somehow allowed to linger with the team. When they leave it’s usually a boost to the teams productivity overall.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com