[wslh]

First, is important to search the truth. I think we are discussing if 1 + 1 is equal to 2 or not. 10X engineers exist (I would say that 100X ones too). If you found even one it is enough to probe this fact.

You can see similar distributions with scientists or other professionals.

[yogo]

With so much mention of 10x on HN I'm surprised Grant Cardone isn't on here or at tech conferences selling his book. That brings me to my point, a car salesman selling 10 times as much cars as other salesmen is clearly 10x, how do you determine that for a developer? To me it seems like there are so many variables that such a distinction would always be incorrect.

[wslh]

When I see a developer that can work on a complex product alone in short time and almost no bugs, well this a developer in the 10X league.

[yogo]

Sure, if the idea is to make the 10 in 10x meaningless. My point was that saying something is 10X implies that it is quantifiable. That developer can be assumed to be above average but you don't know that he's 10x. Maybe he worked in the same domain for a long time or did exactly the same work before. I agree that if someone works in the same domain for a long time eventually they will be an expert but as a developer saying that he/she is 10x doesn't mean much. If I write social networks for 10 years then I can appear to be 10x for all things social but how productive am I outside of that? I guess the more appropriate discussion is what is a developer 10x in.

[wslh]

I agree. Now I am following you.

The discussion about what a 10x developer means is really interesting: specialization and long time commitment to specific fields pays a very important part. I don't think you can be a 10X developer in an unrelated specialty. We can compare this with experiments about chess masters playing a new game with modified rules, they are not masters anymore.