| I know an, objectively, 500x engineer. This was measurable because of a joint venture between Siemens and Ericsson, in the '90s. Each sent 500 engineers. They had six months to produce a deliverable, that could not be late: the classic Death March project. This engineer was responsible for assigning tasks to the others, and to himself. Each engineer got two-week tasks. Come 2nd Friday, if somebody's task wasn't done yet, he did it himself, over the weekend. At project end, fully half the code committed to the delivered product was his. The project was unusual in other ways. Stress is objectively measurable given blood samples, which they took. His were the only that did not show rising stress. They took samples again months after the project ended. Stress levels (in the others) had not declined. Death March projects are really, really harmful: physically harmful to engineers, but also to companies that hope to get something from those engineers afterward. He knew someone else who coded 10x faster than he did, wearing out 2 keyboards a year. So, he wasn't proud. 500x was enough for him. |