The real 10x developer

10x developer is defined as the developer that is 10 times more productive than the average developer. Whether these developers exist is a matter of debate. Usually, people will tell you that 10x developers don’t exist. Most of them are trying to tell you what this article will try to explain.

10x programmers, or even 100x programmers, do, in fact, exist. But real 10x programmers are not the ones who “can perform a task 10 times faster than the average programmer”. Don’t get me wrong, there are people who can implement something extremely quickly, much faster than the average programmer. Does that, however, make these individuals 10x more valuable? I would argue not. And most of the time, those individuals do more harm than good. Real gains in software development are usually not measured in implementation times, but in future maintenance man-hours. The right person in the right position can save tens of thousands of man-hours for a company, essentially being 10x or 100x more valuable than others. Software engineering, because of its chaotic nature, really allows for such large gains, or losses, when practiced in the wrong way. Small mistakes have a tendency to pile up in huge technical dept over time.

So, why is completing a task very fast harmful? Writing solid software is hard. Systems are usually chaotic; maintenance is very hard, and there are a lot of pitfalls. Good programmers know this. When a programmer makes something work as described, he/she has finished about a third of the job. Then comes the hard part. That is, hold the task, until you are certain that you can answer yes to the following questions:

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