[interludead]

A great engineer isn't the one writing the most "brilliant" code; it's the one who understands the problem, picks the simplest solution that works, and makes life easier for the next person who touches it.

[tremon]

In my experience, the person you're describing is hardly ever the one perceived as having "5-10x business impact". Specifically, "making life easier for the next person who touches it" is unproductive use of company time.

Which is why I have learned to stay away from people who use that metric.

[redserk]

Yeah, “business impact” is measured entirely on a short-term basis.

In 3-4 years when you need to make a drastic change, that’s when the actual business impact comes into play, but this is never measured.

In my experience with some groups, waiting another 2-3 months to do things correctly would have saved years in future work.