Throughout my career I had different understandings of 10x engineers. Here's what I think now.
(1) some people are bad at engineering. Not too many but enough. And that's okay. We should help lead them elsewhere. They're like 0.2x engineers or - 1x engineers. As long as we can spot those well be okay.
(2) some engineers need mentorship. They don't know how to be effective engineers but have the raw tallent to get there. They just need a push. They may not even see their flaw. It is critical to spot these and teach them as without that mentorship they will cause more hard than good.
(3) some engineers are brilliant. They have the raw brain power to create amazing things. Often this is accompanied by a lack of experience and a need to help hone their skills. They are much more similar to (2) than people would think. They just have potential to grow faster.
(4) engineers who have lots of experience and don't need the raw brainpower to be effective. These are the 10xers. The main reason is because they've been around long enough to know they can't out code 2x (2 + 3)s because of salary. They can't because they are human with only but so many hours of the day.
So instead the (4) figures out that if they use their experience to aim the weaker engineers like a sniper rifle right at the target, get rid of months if wheel spinning, avoid rewrites due to bad decisions, know where to experiment and where to get down and dirty. They are 10x because their team just gets faster, better, effective. Everyone is always busy with the right thing. They deliver consistently and with high quality. Nobody can pin exactly why everything works but every small thing just lines up. All the (1)s get called out and move on, all the (2)s get mentored and become very effective, and all the (3)s get the roadblocks cleared so they can zoom down the development highway.
Point is. A solid team is better than any engineer. And a solid engineer will make his team solid.
(1) some people are bad at engineering. Not too many but enough. And that's okay. We should help lead them elsewhere. They're like 0.2x engineers or - 1x engineers. As long as we can spot those well be okay.
(2) some engineers need mentorship. They don't know how to be effective engineers but have the raw tallent to get there. They just need a push. They may not even see their flaw. It is critical to spot these and teach them as without that mentorship they will cause more hard than good.
(3) some engineers are brilliant. They have the raw brain power to create amazing things. Often this is accompanied by a lack of experience and a need to help hone their skills. They are much more similar to (2) than people would think. They just have potential to grow faster.
(4) engineers who have lots of experience and don't need the raw brainpower to be effective. These are the 10xers. The main reason is because they've been around long enough to know they can't out code 2x (2 + 3)s because of salary. They can't because they are human with only but so many hours of the day.
So instead the (4) figures out that if they use their experience to aim the weaker engineers like a sniper rifle right at the target, get rid of months if wheel spinning, avoid rewrites due to bad decisions, know where to experiment and where to get down and dirty. They are 10x because their team just gets faster, better, effective. Everyone is always busy with the right thing. They deliver consistently and with high quality. Nobody can pin exactly why everything works but every small thing just lines up. All the (1)s get called out and move on, all the (2)s get mentored and become very effective, and all the (3)s get the roadblocks cleared so they can zoom down the development highway.
Point is. A solid team is better than any engineer. And a solid engineer will make his team solid.