Anyone that is comfortable and familiar with their toolset (e.g. go, .NET, Java, C++) and has a deep understanding of a problem (and has likely solved it once already), can churn out code far, far, faster than an onlooker.
I’ve found that in any tech company, while there are many people that write good code and do a great job, there are always a handful (even at a place like Apple) that truly push the industry forward and in certain directions, partly because of how they see years ahead, partly because they are supremely talented, and partly because they attract other really good talent just to work with them.
And we know many of their names. Folks like Brian Cantrill, Yehuda Katz, Fabrice Bellard, John Carmack, Bret Taylor.
They aren’t just good programmers. They’re constantly dwelling in uncharted territory.
I’m not advocating worshipping them, just stating that their talent and output is hell of a lot more than even 10x.
I don't understand this fetishization of "everyone has nearly equal ability" in the face of tons of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Maybe we can put aside whether or not there is No True 10x Developer. But there are certainly 0.1x developers, and even -1x developers.
Is this a bad thing to discourage? Perhaps one way to increase your output as a developer is to narrow your focus (rather than jumping on the latest framework or build system which require constantly re-learning new solutions to the same problem)
No. It's what I encourage people in my team to do all the time. In fact it's something I was also encouraged to do.
The full quote was:
"Become an expert in at least one thing in your job or preferably career, and do it while you have the time" (e.g. when you're junior and expectations are low, or not a manager).
Add to it being able to work in YOUR headspace and not have to bring other people in a large-ish team along with you and you can get stuff done.
There are people producing JS bundler and are comfortable and familiar with their toolset along with deep understanding of the problem. And they dont even come close to what is being described here.
"Why is DJ Bernstein so great? I too can churn out CRUD apps very fast in ruby rails" - some webshit says this every day on HN.
I've worked in the industry for almost 30 years, and I've worked with a lot of people in that time. Those that you might qualify as '10x', all have had both of the qualities I mention.
I would not expect any of those people to switch languages and fields and still be a '10x' developer.
Look at someone like Yehuda Katz. Substantial contributions in ruby (merb, bundler), JS (jQuery core team, created Ember.js), and rust (created cargo).
But trying to elevate him or make him uncomfortable (he’s also a really humble dude), but just saying there are examples of polyglots that make substantial contributions.
And yet… we do recognize that some people are impressively better than others at playing piano, running yards, fighting, and all sorts of other narrowly specific tasks.
It’s just that the more creative the task, the harder it to measure how much better someone is.
