The 10x developer makes their whole team better
stackoverflow.blog
stackoverflow.blog
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.
Exactly: I had a very similar experience in my previous work.
A single guy was super-effective at pushing the technology he was strong in, and preventing anything else from reaching even development environment.
He was effectively a 10x because no other colleague was given an actual chance of shining.
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?
This is/was me. Working on that.
I was the one to call the shots. Joined years ago, took a thing from lab to a real household product, ran out of steam, then left once the fiefdoms started settling in.
I noticed the impact it had both personally and externally, leaving was an act of care for everyone. I'm still burned out.
I joined a new place and made an ass out of myself in the last couple months, because of this coping mechanism. I'm preconditioned to throw elbows.
Fortunately most around me seem to have realized and allowed me room to learn to be human again.
I appreciate the healthier dynamics. I'm just trying to learn to participate again in good faith. It was taken from me.
The last place was so dysfunctional that me, the effective/favored SRE, was leading literally by consequence - in several senses.
This is entirely never true, my dude/dudette.
It literally never happens that only a single person is smart and everybody else is an idiot.
If one thinks that does happen in real life then that person is either a teenager with self-esteem issues or an adult that has seen too many tv series.
But frankly my intuition tells me some people will be incapable of understanding that, so i'll be wasting my words for those that can understand it in hope they can recognize the pattern and leave toxic work environments and people as soon as they can.
Peace.
Many people try to be good at heart, but there are certain dens of scum that all but the naive, foolish, and equally villainous steer clear of (I was the first two). I joined a startup ran by the equivalent of a used car salesman turned finance exec turned founder. He employed some of his family, and many of his friends and prior colleagues. I was tasked with building the entire technical side of things from the ground up with a "short leash" in terms of resources, time, and such (albeit I came to find out they were never real constraints, just artificial pressure by a Jobs wannabe).
And so I did, because I could not get a job elsewhere, and this was a great career opportunity. I did this in good faith. Even when I had to work 100 hour weeks to put out fires caused by an endless amount of cut corners to reach some artificial deadline -- I still put in a good faith effort to do the right thing. Even when the executives plugged their ears and would not listen to a word that did not coincide with their reality (we need real engineers, and your salesmen need to stop lying to their customers about products we don't have, because I cannot develop 6 projects in parallel. No, you cannot hire a bunch of bodies from a 3rd world country at low wages to staff augment a project behind some delusional deadline).
And so I went from a bright, fit, and jovial young man into a balding, vitriolic, and frankly psychotic goblin. I'm still recovering from the PTSD -- and your post did "trigger" me into an emotional flashback. For that I apologize.
You may have taken my exasperated and irritated tone at face value, as someone without much emotional maturity or inward reflection (i.e. teenagers with self-esteem issues and grown children who spend all of their free time idly consuming entertainment). But this is where I vehemently disagree with your characterization, and will flip it back onto you: perhaps you simply haven't lived enough to understand both view points?
Slackers and juniors slow down 10x devs.
Making the team slower than if the 10x was alone.
No. Build a whole team with people who willing to learn new stuff around that rock star.
Even rock stars do not do that alone. Somebody has to put the equipment together, sell tickets, record their music, play bass.
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.