Give constructive, actionable feedback and avoid personal criticism
Hold yourself and others accountable
Cultivate excellence in an area that is valuable to the team
Educate yourself about diversity, inclusivity, and equality in the workplace
Maintain a growth mindset
Advocate for companies policies that increase workplace equality
Not a single point about the technical part of being a developer, e.g. giving workshops, trainings, talks etc. to share knowledge or even how to increase your development skill effectively.
Nonetheless, if you follow this list you will probably be a better teammate but I don’t think it will make you a better developer.
it’s a gotcha title. We should probably change to be “how to be a 10x teammate” or add a comment that illuminates that its about the counter-intuitive notion that being an effective teammate can cause more work to be done more quickly.
I once worked at a place with over 500 staff developers, where people like that were fired with little hesitation. Still there were some developers that would run circles around anyone else. They’d do a week worth of mere mortal’s work in a day, and it’ll be tidy, well designed and commented throughout.
Guess you can deny people of superior skill and talent exist until your first very humbling encounter with one.
Those of us who doubt the existence of 10x developers don’t deny the existence of 5x developers, of course!
(I’m kidding, but I do think there’s something weird about the numbers used. No one thinks every dev is equally productive, how many people think they can precisely measure 10x?).
Or maybe you could be one of them if you applied yourself. (i’m teasing)
Of course highly capable people exist, frequently though what I’ve observed people calling 10x developers are actually 1x developers in an environment of 1/10x developers. I think the biggest thing that separates the highly effective individuals is actually the fact that they don’t allow themselves to spin their wheels. They defend their focus. They spend time understanding the problem before getting started. A really really good guide on like how to think effectively in this way is in G. Polya’s “How to solve it”. He talks about general problem solving strategies. Pure mathematics is like lifting weights for programmers. Get swole.
It’s always healthy to doubt your limits, a lot of people have imagined barriers after which they no longer try. Especially when it’s incorrect base strategies. A lot of people assume its that they just aren’t working hard enough, when really they just aren’t applying their effort in a constructive way. They try working harder and they hit a wall, instead they should be reevaluating their base strategies.
I don’t doubt my limits, just happen to know them. My average productivity, my burst/deathmarch productivity, how much work it takes me to burn out and how long to recover. Short of using stimulants, doubt there is much untapped cognitive potential left.
Your problem is that you view cognitive ability and effort as a primary determinants in productivity. To paint an extreme picture, the smartest mind applied to the dumbest strategy, or the hardest worker on the dumbest strategy will both still be much less successful than the dumbest laziest mind applied to the smartest strategy. In this way strategy is much more important than ability, especially if you are already mundane in your abilities.
Brilliance, blood, sweat, and tears only matter if they’re working in the right direction. Or in other words, mediocrity well applied will outpace brilliance every time.
Without addressing the content of this discussion between you and @varjag, I find your tone and implications disrespectful and condescending: “Get swole”, “It’s always healthy to doubt your limits”, “Your problem is that”. I believe this deserves to be pointed out.
Quite contrary, I think your problem is you axiomatically accept that baseline mental capabilities are roughly equal across population. Working form there, and knowing nothing about me really, you arrive that my problem-solving approaches must be lacking to account for the stark difference in productivity I claim.
So speaking of problem solving, this does not look like a productive approach.
Sorry for being a dick. I was trying to be playful but I think I was being an ass. I was admittedly trying to address things I viewed as trends but I was talking to you an individual. My view is really about how I’ve seen really really capable people faceplant, and maybe not the brightest push through. That doesn’t mean everyone can, or should try to beat the best and hardest working. Sorry for being weird and pushy I guess I’m just going through some shit I wasn’t aware I was going through.
So it’s not “Becoming a 10x Developer”, it’s “10 Ways to be a Better Teammate”. Anyway, clickbait title from an author proud of her titles - Head Mugwump, Software Princess, Software Warrior Princess …
The title is clickbaity, but it’s not something other authors haven’t stated similarly. If you can through teamwork get your teammates to work more effectively and not become blocked, then you are far more than a 10x developer. There is wisdom in not fetishizing individual progress. Well at least if you are the person who owns the business. If you’re the worker bee then the only thing that matters is the appearance of your progress. You can appear to be a 10x by floundering everyone around you too… We had a guy who did that for several years before management figured out he wasn’t actually very good, he was just effective at draining the work capacity of his peers.
I wasn’t able to find titles on the article you were describing, though I don’t think those count as real titles, they sound more like twitter culture.
There’s a kernel of an idea here that the author doesn’t state explicitly, and others like Fred Brooks have. The idea is that no matter how capable any particular developer is, there is always a limit. One of the ways a capable developer can increase their productivety is to lead/build a team of highly productive developers. This author provides some ideas on behaviors that can benefit such a team. I don’t think there’s enough here to make an ordinary team a high performing team though.
I personally have had some success leading teams. The approach I take is that of a coach, and listening/observing to what each member needs from a leader. Some require constant coaching and guidance until a proficiency level is reached. Others take off on their own, and only need the lead for occassional guidance. A quote I really like is “the tide raises all boats”. The idea being the create conditions so all team members can improve.
So what are some coaching tips, or areas to concentrate on? Some examples I offer; using version control effectively, using development tools effectively, reading and interpreting requirements, when making assumptions is appropriate, and when seeking guidance from stake holders is paramount.
But ultimately, a lot of a teams productivety can be beyond it’s level of influence. For example in low function oranizations with chaotic product and project management, where requirements and priorities shift like the breeze off of a dead sea, delivering anything is often near impossible.
To me a 10x developer is just someone who doesn’t waste time constantly, browse the internet, and takes every opportunity to work at a consistent fast pace because they enjoy winning and enjoy being on a team that wins.
I don’t know if there are a lot of 10x developers, but there are a lot of 0.10x developers.
From what I’ve seen so far this and “tying people up in zero value discussions” are the most frequently employed methods to 0.10x oneself and/or one’s team. The best way I know of to counter both of these is to clarify goals, and work backward from those:
what is the goal
how does the current activity / discussion relate to it
how do the proposed alternatives relate to it
summary, decision
(Edit: to clarify, “waste time” as in “do work the result of which does not decrease distance-to-goal”)
I have found that as long as I have meaningful work to do, I actually prefer the work to browsing. Meaningful in the sense that it has a 1) clear goal that 2) I find worthy of reaching. This can be due to the actual end goal (e.g. product / decision / situation), or it can be due to some aspect of reaching it, e.g. an interesting technical problem to solve or a challenging social situation to navigate.
yeah pretty much I’m a .10x dev right up until the work is interesting, and then I’m a mighty 1x developer. I’ll admit its something I’d like to push through and be able to merely do work for work’s sake. I can hear my father, “Stop messing around and get it done.” lol
40-50%* of those are not advice that helps the reader, but a political position that the author wishes to advance. There’s nothing wrong with the latter, but sneaking it in under the pretence of engineering career advice only serves to increase polarisation.
* depending on how you read “Encourage everyone to participate equally”. There’s encouragement and there’s encouragement…
If you need to spend 40 hours just to treat your peers as peers you will never ever be successful. Cooperation and mutual gain is the foundation of success. You’re going to waste so much time butting heads that you’re never going to get anything shipped.
If you are a startup founder I highly recommend 37 Signal’s rework. He cuts through a lot of the cargo culting of larger corporations in startup culture and gets to evidence based strategies.
I’m not sure if your comment agrees with mine or not.
In any case, I have brought more women into tech than men, but not as part of any political crusade. I just happen to hang out with women more. Sadly, some of these women have decided tech is not for them because they don’t want to deal with the people who spend most of their time talking about diversity.
I have worked with and still work with brilliant women, and we do great work together. It really is as simple as that. Or perhaps I live on a different planet. Who knows.
Edit: I’ve shipped products alone and in teams. And I have a copy of Rework, and I’ve read it (and thoroughly enjoyed it) twice — it’s not particularly long. None of this is going to change my position.
Edit 2: The motivation for my original terse and provocative comment was the author’s list of 10 ways to become a 10x developer. I think the list is largely nonsense, but that absolutely isn’t to say I disagree with all of the points. Most of them are common sense and generally adhered to by decent people. Some of the points however veer into typical SJW territory of quotas and affirmative action, which I strongly reject as a left-leaning liberal.
Again, if you need to spend 40 hours a week for the indefinite future to educate yourself on diversity, inclusivity and equality you have no place running a business. If women are leaving your business because you’re talking so much about diversity then stop doing lip service.
I said I know women who have left tech after having to deal with people who are only interested in talking about diversity. This has happened after I sent these women to events like RailsGirls and similar.
In my defense it was a particularly ambiguous line. The main thing I viewed as dangerous was not being willing to investigate or understand diversity or inclusion. I’ll admit part of this might be a misunderstanding as a result of where we live? We don’t really have the same intense everything about diversity environment where I am. Instead it’s usually a token statement with not much action behind it. Most workplaces around where I am have a stark wage gap between men and women. The root problem is that when you don’t have solidarity with minorities or other traditionally oppressed groups, it can basically be used as a wedge to drive all wages and labor rights down.
Being said yeah I don’t carte blanche accept everything the author wrote either.
Edit: I don’t see anywhere in the article where it talks about quotas…
I understand. And in that case, I think we mostly agree with one another. Your comment about location is pertinent too; the social climate in the US is nothing like what it is in, e.g. Sweden or Poland. I’m not sure this is understood by everyone.
The article didn’t explicitly mention quotas, but at least in my experience I believe point #10 is a euphimism for just that.
Yeah that’s fair. As I’ve said in response to klingtnet too recently I’ve literally had to defend even having a discussion about bigoted terms on this site. There’s a sort of identity conflict going on that seems to be distracting from the root of using solidarity as our primary way of relating. When you see some demographic being attacked you speak up, not because you support them, but to create a herd immunity. There are those who seek to divide up the public in some faint hopes of being on top. In reality any group seeking to divide the public will themselves be divided and controlled.
I frankly can’t tell anymore. It seems like lobsters has recently gotten an influx of individuals who are arbitrarily hostile to random demographics. I’ve recently been butting heads with people who seem to think that any sentiment against hostility or towards civility is somehow going to ruin their lives. Not saying jgt is that kind of person but the interactions with various others prior have definitely made me more defensive.
No, my position on this has not changed. I still think the original article is mostly political propaganda. As I clarified in an earlier comment, I believe the author is using a euphimism for affirmative action — a concept which in my experience has increased polarity, and in some cases even driven women away from our industry.
The women I work with explicitly do not want to be treated differently. They do not want to be thought of as “woman programmers”. They are programmers. They do not want handouts. They want equal respect as peers, which is of course what they deserve. Affirmative action is not equal; it’s a handout.
I am surprised I have to explain this to you, and I’m even more surprised that the Lobsters community is cool with a user nonchalantly calling another user an asshole.
I have some choice terms for you, but I’ll keep them to myself.
I’ll concede that there is always some sarcasm [a personal weakness of mine] when I touch on this issue. That’s because it’s important, and it affects some people dear to me. Do I want a more diverse industry? Of course! I just don’t believe that all of the most vocal diversity advocates are going the right way about it, for the reasons explained in some of my previous comments.
I’d appreciate it if you were more clear with your sarcasm in the future so that I won’t be tilting at windmills. I personally am fond of the “ :V “ face to denote jokes/sarcasm. There are people (I grew up with) who still think that a woman’s role is only to take care of the home. They aren’t old, they’re like 27. So for many there is still a discussion being had about whether this is even a problem we want to solve.
Not a single point about the technical part of being a developer, e.g. giving workshops, trainings, talks etc. to share knowledge or even how to increase your development skill effectively. Nonetheless, if you follow this list you will probably be a better teammate but I don’t think it will make you a better developer.
it’s a gotcha title. We should probably change to be “how to be a 10x teammate” or add a comment that illuminates that its about the counter-intuitive notion that being an effective teammate can cause more work to be done more quickly.
So how do you call someone who is 10x better than those around them then?
Someone who works at a place where most the staff browses the internet all day :V.
I once worked at a place with over 500 staff developers, where people like that were fired with little hesitation. Still there were some developers that would run circles around anyone else. They’d do a week worth of mere mortal’s work in a day, and it’ll be tidy, well designed and commented throughout.
Guess you can deny people of superior skill and talent exist until your first very humbling encounter with one.
“a week worth of mere mortal’s work in a day”
Those of us who doubt the existence of 10x developers don’t deny the existence of 5x developers, of course!
(I’m kidding, but I do think there’s something weird about the numbers used. No one thinks every dev is equally productive, how many people think they can precisely measure 10x?).
Thing is, if you distribute their work to a team of 5 people, it’ll take several days due to communication overhead. So easily that or even more.
Or maybe you could be one of them if you applied yourself. (i’m teasing)
Of course highly capable people exist, frequently though what I’ve observed people calling 10x developers are actually 1x developers in an environment of 1/10x developers. I think the biggest thing that separates the highly effective individuals is actually the fact that they don’t allow themselves to spin their wheels. They defend their focus. They spend time understanding the problem before getting started. A really really good guide on like how to think effectively in this way is in G. Polya’s “How to solve it”. He talks about general problem solving strategies. Pure mathematics is like lifting weights for programmers. Get swole.
There’s some hubris assuming you’re the only one on Lobsters familiar with mathematics :)
Thanks, but after couple decades programming professionally, am pretty certain I know my limits.
What made you think that I think that?
It’s always healthy to doubt your limits, a lot of people have imagined barriers after which they no longer try. Especially when it’s incorrect base strategies. A lot of people assume its that they just aren’t working hard enough, when really they just aren’t applying their effort in a constructive way. They try working harder and they hit a wall, instead they should be reevaluating their base strategies.
I don’t doubt my limits, just happen to know them. My average productivity, my burst/deathmarch productivity, how much work it takes me to burn out and how long to recover. Short of using stimulants, doubt there is much untapped cognitive potential left.
Your problem is that you view cognitive ability and effort as a primary determinants in productivity. To paint an extreme picture, the smartest mind applied to the dumbest strategy, or the hardest worker on the dumbest strategy will both still be much less successful than the dumbest laziest mind applied to the smartest strategy. In this way strategy is much more important than ability, especially if you are already mundane in your abilities.
Brilliance, blood, sweat, and tears only matter if they’re working in the right direction. Or in other words, mediocrity well applied will outpace brilliance every time.
Without addressing the content of this discussion between you and @varjag, I find your tone and implications disrespectful and condescending: “Get swole”, “It’s always healthy to doubt your limits”, “Your problem is that”. I believe this deserves to be pointed out.
Quite contrary, I think your problem is you axiomatically accept that baseline mental capabilities are roughly equal across population. Working form there, and knowing nothing about me really, you arrive that my problem-solving approaches must be lacking to account for the stark difference in productivity I claim.
So speaking of problem solving, this does not look like a productive approach.
Sorry for being a dick. I was trying to be playful but I think I was being an ass. I was admittedly trying to address things I viewed as trends but I was talking to you an individual. My view is really about how I’ve seen really really capable people faceplant, and maybe not the brightest push through. That doesn’t mean everyone can, or should try to beat the best and hardest working. Sorry for being weird and pushy I guess I’m just going through some shit I wasn’t aware I was going through.
No problem, happens to the best of us :)
So it’s not “Becoming a 10x Developer”, it’s “10 Ways to be a Better Teammate”. Anyway, clickbait title from an author proud of her titles - Head Mugwump, Software Princess, Software Warrior Princess …
The title is clickbaity, but it’s not something other authors haven’t stated similarly. If you can through teamwork get your teammates to work more effectively and not become blocked, then you are far more than a 10x developer. There is wisdom in not fetishizing individual progress. Well at least if you are the person who owns the business. If you’re the worker bee then the only thing that matters is the appearance of your progress. You can appear to be a 10x by floundering everyone around you too… We had a guy who did that for several years before management figured out he wasn’t actually very good, he was just effective at draining the work capacity of his peers.
I wasn’t able to find titles on the article you were describing, though I don’t think those count as real titles, they sound more like twitter culture.
There’s a kernel of an idea here that the author doesn’t state explicitly, and others like Fred Brooks have. The idea is that no matter how capable any particular developer is, there is always a limit. One of the ways a capable developer can increase their productivety is to lead/build a team of highly productive developers. This author provides some ideas on behaviors that can benefit such a team. I don’t think there’s enough here to make an ordinary team a high performing team though.
I personally have had some success leading teams. The approach I take is that of a coach, and listening/observing to what each member needs from a leader. Some require constant coaching and guidance until a proficiency level is reached. Others take off on their own, and only need the lead for occassional guidance. A quote I really like is “the tide raises all boats”. The idea being the create conditions so all team members can improve.
So what are some coaching tips, or areas to concentrate on? Some examples I offer; using version control effectively, using development tools effectively, reading and interpreting requirements, when making assumptions is appropriate, and when seeking guidance from stake holders is paramount.
But ultimately, a lot of a teams productivety can be beyond it’s level of influence. For example in low function oranizations with chaotic product and project management, where requirements and priorities shift like the breeze off of a dead sea, delivering anything is often near impossible.
To me a 10x developer is just someone who doesn’t waste time constantly, browse the internet, and takes every opportunity to work at a consistent fast pace because they enjoy winning and enjoy being on a team that wins.
I don’t know if there are a lot of 10x developers, but there are a lot of 0.10x developers.
From what I’ve seen so far this and “tying people up in zero value discussions” are the most frequently employed methods to 0.10x oneself and/or one’s team. The best way I know of to counter both of these is to clarify goals, and work backward from those:
(Edit: to clarify, “waste time” as in “do work the result of which does not decrease distance-to-goal”)
For me browsing lobste.rs is a big one :(
I have found that as long as I have meaningful work to do, I actually prefer the work to browsing. Meaningful in the sense that it has a 1) clear goal that 2) I find worthy of reaching. This can be due to the actual end goal (e.g. product / decision / situation), or it can be due to some aspect of reaching it, e.g. an interesting technical problem to solve or a challenging social situation to navigate.
yeah pretty much I’m a .10x dev right up until the work is interesting, and then I’m a mighty 1x developer. I’ll admit its something I’d like to push through and be able to merely do work for work’s sake. I can hear my father, “Stop messing around and get it done.” lol
40-50%
*of those are not advice that helps the reader, but a political position that the author wishes to advance. There’s nothing wrong with the latter, but sneaking it in under the pretence of engineering career advice only serves to increase polarisation.*depending on how you read “Encourage everyone to participate equally”. There’s encouragement and there’s encouragement…All that time I’m studying diversity and inclusion is time I’m not shipping a product.
If you need to spend 40 hours just to treat your peers as peers you will never ever be successful. Cooperation and mutual gain is the foundation of success. You’re going to waste so much time butting heads that you’re never going to get anything shipped.
If you are a startup founder I highly recommend 37 Signal’s rework. He cuts through a lot of the cargo culting of larger corporations in startup culture and gets to evidence based strategies.
https://basecamp.com/books/rework
I’m not sure if your comment agrees with mine or not.
In any case, I have brought more women into tech than men, but not as part of any political crusade. I just happen to hang out with women more. Sadly, some of these women have decided tech is not for them because they don’t want to deal with the people who spend most of their time talking about diversity.
I have worked with and still work with brilliant women, and we do great work together. It really is as simple as that. Or perhaps I live on a different planet. Who knows.
Edit: I’ve shipped products alone and in teams. And I have a copy of Rework, and I’ve read it (and thoroughly enjoyed it) twice — it’s not particularly long. None of this is going to change my position.
Edit 2: The motivation for my original terse and provocative comment was the author’s list of 10 ways to become a 10x developer. I think the list is largely nonsense, but that absolutely isn’t to say I disagree with all of the points. Most of them are common sense and generally adhered to by decent people. Some of the points however veer into typical SJW territory of quotas and affirmative action, which I strongly reject as a left-leaning liberal.
Again, if you need to spend 40 hours a week for the indefinite future to educate yourself on diversity, inclusivity and equality you have no place running a business. If women are leaving your business because you’re talking so much about diversity then stop doing lip service.
…But, they aren’t?
I said I know women who have left tech after having to deal with people who are only interested in talking about diversity. This has happened after I sent these women to events like RailsGirls and similar.
Please try reading more carefuly.
In my defense it was a particularly ambiguous line. The main thing I viewed as dangerous was not being willing to investigate or understand diversity or inclusion. I’ll admit part of this might be a misunderstanding as a result of where we live? We don’t really have the same intense everything about diversity environment where I am. Instead it’s usually a token statement with not much action behind it. Most workplaces around where I am have a stark wage gap between men and women. The root problem is that when you don’t have solidarity with minorities or other traditionally oppressed groups, it can basically be used as a wedge to drive all wages and labor rights down.
Being said yeah I don’t carte blanche accept everything the author wrote either.
Edit: I don’t see anywhere in the article where it talks about quotas…
I understand. And in that case, I think we mostly agree with one another. Your comment about location is pertinent too; the social climate in the US is nothing like what it is in, e.g. Sweden or Poland. I’m not sure this is understood by everyone.
The article didn’t explicitly mention quotas, but at least in my experience I believe point #10 is a euphimism for just that.
Yeah that’s fair. As I’ve said in response to klingtnet too recently I’ve literally had to defend even having a discussion about bigoted terms on this site. There’s a sort of identity conflict going on that seems to be distracting from the root of using solidarity as our primary way of relating. When you see some demographic being attacked you speak up, not because you support them, but to create a herd immunity. There are those who seek to divide up the public in some faint hopes of being on top. In reality any group seeking to divide the public will themselves be divided and controlled.
I think @jgt’s comment was sarcasm.
I frankly can’t tell anymore. It seems like lobsters has recently gotten an influx of individuals who are arbitrarily hostile to random demographics. I’ve recently been butting heads with people who seem to think that any sentiment against hostility or towards civility is somehow going to ruin their lives. Not saying jgt is that kind of person but the interactions with various others prior have definitely made me more defensive.
The term is Shrödinger’s asshole.
No, my position on this has not changed. I still think the original article is mostly political propaganda. As I clarified in an earlier comment, I believe the author is using a euphimism for affirmative action — a concept which in my experience has increased polarity, and in some cases even driven women away from our industry.
The women I work with explicitly do not want to be treated differently. They do not want to be thought of as “woman programmers”. They are programmers. They do not want handouts. They want equal respect as peers, which is of course what they deserve. Affirmative action is not equal; it’s a handout.
I am surprised I have to explain this to you, and I’m even more surprised that the Lobsters community is cool with a user nonchalantly calling another user an asshole.
I have some choice terms for you, but I’ll keep them to myself.
Uhm, sorry it wasn’t clear, but I wasn’t calling you an asshole. The comment I’m replying to explicitly says:
I simply linked to a concise term for the behavior voronoipotato was describing.
I’ll concede that there is always some sarcasm [a personal weakness of mine] when I touch on this issue. That’s because it’s important, and it affects some people dear to me. Do I want a more diverse industry? Of course! I just don’t believe that all of the most vocal diversity advocates are going the right way about it, for the reasons explained in some of my previous comments.
I’d appreciate it if you were more clear with your sarcasm in the future so that I won’t be tilting at windmills. I personally am fond of the “ :V “ face to denote jokes/sarcasm. There are people (I grew up with) who still think that a woman’s role is only to take care of the home. They aren’t old, they’re like 27. So for many there is still a discussion being had about whether this is even a problem we want to solve.