Does the 10X Dev Exist? What Makes a 10x?
Ask nearly anyone or go and search the internet and you’ll find a lot of articles telling you that a 10x dev simply does not exist. The arguments generally come from three vantage points. They offer you the following statements that you’re supposed to accept as fact.
• The original study about 10x was a flawed study.
• Quantifying productivity simply can’t be done.
• There is just no way that one person can do the work of ten.
What IS a 10 x dev?
Literally speaking it is the developer/coder who can code at 10x the rate of the average coder with nominal errors. Does he/she really exist. Well if you listen to about half the world, the answer is no. If you listen to the other half, no one is quite sure.
Hacker sites and Twitter posters are the top two places where you will read about how the 10x developer simply cannot exist and they will give you myriad reasons and “facts” to ensure that you buy into their theory.
The original study that coined the 10xdev was flawed. . Is there a study in the world that isn’t flawed in some way? Probably not. While that comment may well be true and the 10x dev guy may not exist, then again. . .
Stack Overflow has an entire thread on the subject ( closed now but still interesting) “Detailed examination of Sackman, Erickson, and Grant’s findings shows some flaws in their methodology… However, even after accounting for the flaws, their data still shows more than a 10-fold difference between the best programmers and the worst.”
You can’t measure programming in that way. . . Again, possibly true but even if you can’t measure it, you can quite easily reason about it or estimate it. There simply isn’t a metric that can measure what should be the normal output in a given language so that you can then measure what is ten times that in a given time span, but you can guesstimate and in most cases, that’s how we determine output in any language.
So if the 10x developer exists, what makes a 10x? What traits and habits combine to form this perfect coding machine?
Think about what makes a good coder.The kind of decisions and insights that go into that person. Then consider what would be necessary to allow someone to be gifted enough and talented enough to create that perfect coding storm.
It’s not just about writing code. It’s about making the right code in the right place. It’s about finding a coder that has the insight and the talent to create that right code every time. The 10x coder will be able to get the right solutions and devise the right methods—code in a way that would never even occur to the average coder.
That great 10x coder will know the kind of errors to avoid and the ones that are the most costly for a company. He or she will maybe not code faster, but will code infinitely better, avoiding problems that might cost months of work.
Does that 10x coder exist? Probably so and when you find them, hang on tight because they will be worth their weight in gold.