Whether or not "10x programmers" exist, I can say for sure that 1/10th programmers exist. I know a few in that category. And it really amounts to the same thing.
> Even more important than finding great engineers is to avoid bad ones.<p>After reading that sentence, I thought to myself, "How long did I go from the start of my career before meeting someone of whom I genuinely thought, 'this person is so bad they should definitely be fired asap'?". In my case, I think the answer is somewhere around 20 years.<p>My takeaway from this is that at even with ~18 years of experience, my former self would probably not have appreciated the importance of this advice, as I had rarely or never encountered such a person thus far.
"If you find a project where only one person know what is going on, chances are that person is not good at writing code for humans, not that is a coding god."<p>This is hard for many to grasp, but if you get the opportunity to lead enough teams it will become clear. And it makes sense, if you think about it. An individual who ended up owning a particular piece of a codebase will be incentivized to obfuscate and obscure their code in order to maintain full control over it. It's job security and furthermore if it's a valuable piece of the product then it can keep praise and rewards centered on you. We should also not be quick to blame the individual for perpetuating this, the right incentives need to be in place to reward both team progress and individual progress.
I've worked with 10x-ers. They do exist.<p>In my experience they're extraordinary people in many, many aspects. More than anyone has a right to.<p>Besides the god-like ability to solve problems, they were amazing mentors, and clear communicators focused on what's right for the team at the time.<p>They were universally liked and working with them makes you a better professional.<p>Software is a a team sport, successes is hard to come by on your own.
> Even more important than finding great engineers is to avoid bad ones.<p>I don't know how many Jeff Deans and John Carmacks the OP would turn away in order to avoid a bad engineer on the team, but for me the answer is zero.
I’ve been fortunate in my career thus far, since I was about 14 or so, to have always been in the company of at least one “10x”’er on each of my teams, as the cliche goes. They’re dispersed through various companies nowadays - Stripe, Twitch, Google, FB, Discord, etc etc. But it was interesting and beneficial for me to work alongside them if only because I had decent role models to follow.<p>This article first puts up a straw man and then switches gears halfway into a different subject. See if you can spot it.<p>There is no exaggeration. Some people are just far more in tune with the mental models required to do good software work at both a micro and macro level, that any time I see someone trying to play it down I have to ask if these individuals have worked with one of these precocious talented folks.<p>I also sometimes struggle to understand why anyone would write an article like this. You obviously want to hire the best you can for the best price you can. Anything else is a silly coping mechanism that you can’t face with honesty.<p>I want to read an article that’s straightforward about how much good work 10x’ers can do and how influential they can be for rest of the team. But this isn’t an article anyone would bother writing because they’re too busy making money to have dick measuring competitions on an online news board.