[labrador]

I've met several. Anticipating what you might ask, what makes them 10x engineers? The ability to go off by themselves, get themselves into a type of trance because they are so focused and return a week or two later with thousands of lines of a fully formed formed program with near perfect working code. It's amazing to see.

[chrsw]

In my opinion, the best engineers don't "go off by themselves". The best help enable an entire team to be more productive, learn faster and deliver value quicker.

[labrador]

It takes great skill to lead a group of people and get the most out of them. That's not an engineering problem.

[chrsw]

It doesn't necessarily have to be leadership. It could be communication, documentation, culture, any number of things. Yes, we are engineers and we work on technical challenges. But nothing is done in isolation, everything is collaboration. The better engineers are the ones that realize this sooner. Even if one person writes amazing code, someone else has to test it, someone has to ship it, someone has to maintain it. These are all engineering problems.

[labrador]

Yes, we all know these things. You're giving me boilerplate management speak. When asked about 10x engineers I think of someone like Fabrice Bellard https://bellard.org/

[chrsw]

Fabrice Bellard is a great programmer. For me, 10x is about delivering real value. not just showing off how clever you are. I wish we all knew this but based on my experience that is not the case.

[labrador]

tbh I think you're comment is disrespectul to Fabrice Bellard. You're implying the man who wrote FFmpeg is a flashy showoff who doesn't deliver real value. That's like saying Mozart was nothing but a score scribbler without the people who made the instruments, sewed the costumes and built the stage

Edit: I became curious about why you didn't see what I was saying. Were you trolling me? I asked Claude Opus to write me a python program with a GUI using wxWidgets, which I've never done before, to extract a list of links and give it to Claude for analysis. I extracted about 5 pages of your comments and your submissions. It only took 15 minutes from idea to finish! That amazes me. You weren't trolling, you just don't agree. I'm retired but if I was still programming I would love this.

Me: how would you characterize this person based on their comment and posting history?

Claude: Based on chrsw's comment and submission history on Hacker News, they seem to be a technically-minded individual with wide-ranging interests spanning computer science, electrical engineering, and technology topics. Some key observations:

Strong interest in low-level hardware and software, including embedded systems, FPGAs, processors, bootloaders, etc. Many of their submissions relate to these topics.

Follows developments in AI, deep learning, and neural networks. Has commented on AI "consciousness", the limitations of large language models, AI replacing jobs, etc.

Knowledgeable about various operating systems like Unix, Plan9, Haiku, FreeRTOS. Interested in OS concepts like booting.

Pragmatic, rational thinker. Their comments are often balanced, seeing multiple sides of issues. Not afraid to respectfully disagree with others.

Long-time Hacker News user (commenting since 2014) who engages in substantive technical discussions. Asks good questions.

Curious about a wide range of computing topics, from encryption to C++ programming to visual studio code. Occasionally comments on economic and social issues like housing affordability, layoffs, climate change - but usually through a fact-based rational lens.

Overall, chrsw comes across as an experienced, pragmatic engineer and technologist with deep interests across the hardware/software stack. They are an active and thoughtful contributor to intellectual discussions on Hacker News.

[syndicatedjelly]

What kind of companies or spaces have you encountered them in?

[labrador]

One was at Microsoft. He kept his office dark except for a large illumiated picture of Jesus on his wall. Everyone spoke reverentially of him and knew to leave him alone. Another was at a small company I worked at. He was my senior. He disappeared for 10 days and returned with about 10,000 lines of 68000 asm code that utilized all 16 32bit registers to pass parameters instead of the stack. I was tasked with testing it. I never found anything wrong with it that weren't minor nits.

[syndicatedjelly]

> He was my senior. He disappeared for 10 days and returned with about 10,000 lines of 68000 asm code that utilized all 16 32bit registers to pass parameters instead of the stack. I was tasked with testing it. I never found anything wrong with it that weren't minor nits.

The places I've worked at would chew me out for "re-inventing the wheel", which is what this would be seen as. How do you vet a workplace ahead of time, that lets you do this kind of "mad scientist" tinkering and engineering?

[labrador]

This was back in the day when the Macintosh was new. There were no libraries. We wrote our own.