So there are these moments in development, where the task boils down to ‘I just need to build this system. I can see it all in my head, and I need to turn it into code’
And for that task, factors like how well a developer knows the libraries, how fluently they can express themselves in the language, how fast they can type, how seamlessly their mental model fits with the tools available.. all of those things can make the difference between it being something one dev can crank out in a couple of days, and another dev takes a few weeks over.
And I definitely want more of the first kind of dev on my team than the second kind.
But here’s where that doesn’t match up to what we expect of lead developers and more senior devs as their careers advance, and why ‘10x’ is not necessarily an indicator of ‘ready for promotion’.
The person who can see the whole problem and turn it into code in 2 days often struggles to figure out how to scale what they do to more people. They can’t express how the code should work to someone else because they’re already three steps ahead - explaining how it needs to be done will take longer than just doing it!
So the problem is as soon as this person encounters a problem that is too big to fit all in their head and crank out in a few days, or that requires expertise they don’t yet have, so they need to collaborate… the approach they have learned to rely on stops working.
But it turns out there are 10x team leaders too - devs who can break large projects up into chunks that can be delivered separately, who make sure the team is building the right thing, who know how to make use of that individual who can just crank out a complex system in a couple of days - repeatedly and sustainably - and who make systems that are the right shape so that later features are cheaper and easier to add, rather than becoming harder and slower. In fact at this level the multipliers go way beyond 10x.
And some of those skills build on the individual 10x dev skill set but some are orthogonal to it. Some are downright opposed.
And for that task, factors like how well a developer knows the libraries, how fluently they can express themselves in the language, how fast they can type, how seamlessly their mental model fits with the tools available.. all of those things can make the difference between it being something one dev can crank out in a couple of days, and another dev takes a few weeks over.
And I definitely want more of the first kind of dev on my team than the second kind.
But here’s where that doesn’t match up to what we expect of lead developers and more senior devs as their careers advance, and why ‘10x’ is not necessarily an indicator of ‘ready for promotion’.
The person who can see the whole problem and turn it into code in 2 days often struggles to figure out how to scale what they do to more people. They can’t express how the code should work to someone else because they’re already three steps ahead - explaining how it needs to be done will take longer than just doing it!
So the problem is as soon as this person encounters a problem that is too big to fit all in their head and crank out in a few days, or that requires expertise they don’t yet have, so they need to collaborate… the approach they have learned to rely on stops working.
But it turns out there are 10x team leaders too - devs who can break large projects up into chunks that can be delivered separately, who make sure the team is building the right thing, who know how to make use of that individual who can just crank out a complex system in a couple of days - repeatedly and sustainably - and who make systems that are the right shape so that later features are cheaper and easier to add, rather than becoming harder and slower. In fact at this level the multipliers go way beyond 10x.
And some of those skills build on the individual 10x dev skill set but some are orthogonal to it. Some are downright opposed.