| I'm not a fan of the 10x programmer concept. I have worked with some brilliant people, some incredibly efficient people, as well as both medicore and poor coders. There are things brilliant programmer can do and concepts they can realise or creativity they can apply that a poor programmer couldn't dream of. But it's never quite so simple as 10x, never so easy to quantify as their being able to complete a given task faster or produce more work. What I have seen far more often however are programmers finding sneaky ways to appear more productive. Cutting corners, hacking things in and - an often overlooked technique - happening to have a such a good knowledge of their own pile of crud messy code that they can in fact produce solutions _considerably_ more quickly (because you know your own mess better than other people's). None of these types of programmer are good for an organisation, some in fact are positively toxic and very destructive. In many cases a better programmer would take longer, sometimes considerably more so. But by perpetuating this 10x idea things get topsy-turvy and it's the poorer coder who gets categorised as brilliant and the brilliant coder who gets categorised as poor. Another aspect of the 'rock star programmer' meme (which this is a variant of) is somebody who's genuinely very sharp can often be good at coming up with ideas but lousy at implementing them and worse at taking criticism. I've seen an extreme example of this in my career. Often the best solution requires careful thought, consideration and design. The best programmers are the ones who weigh up the RoI and, while remaining practical, think things through carefully. Unfortunately I've worked at a startup (from employee #1 to multiple VC rounds) where the CEO believed in this meme and seen the damage it does first hand. |