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0 pointsadam_arthur3y ago0 comments

Most growth companies have an endless bucket of work.

Somebody who produces 2x at same quality of work is worth 2x the other person, fairly objectively.

It's common to find people who produce up to 10x the average. Anyone in a startup or growth oriented company is smart to optimize for these people.

The most proficient and fast coders often write higher quality code too, in my experience.

People who over index on comp sci theory often are lacking in theory underlying good code. But it's not mutually exclusive. Just that if you have to optimize for one, coding proficiency matters much more for startup or growth type companies.

Exception might be like an AI/ML based startup with a lot of theoretical challenges. Most companies much more business/rule oriented though

0 comments

arethuza3y ago

"have an endless bucket of work"

A long time ago I managed a developer who was a genius at finding and fixing bugs - so I thought I would reward him by writing a new module we needed from scratch. He could not do it - when faced with a complex mess of existing code he was perfectly happy and could dive in and fix stuff, faced with a blank sheet of paper he froze and didn't know where to start.

Developers are people and all people are different - we all have our strengths and weaknesses.

vorpalhex3y ago

How do you actually measure 2x or 10x workload while keeping quality the same?

It's _very_ easy to measure how fast it takes a ticket to go from "in progress" to "done" but measuring whether code has bugs, or leads to downtime or is just impossible to parse is a different problem.

If you never need code to be readable or documented I can write it quite quickly. If you want something other humans can have a hope of maintaining, that might take a bit.

sokoloff3y ago

I think everyone who has been in tech for 7 years has a short list of people they’d want on their 4-person tech team and a longer list of people they wouldn’t.

That I can’t tell you to two decimal places exactly how much better the first list is than the second doesn’t mean I can’t tell who’s on which list with high fidelity/repeatability.

lordnacho3y ago

But those are people you've actually worked with day to day, right? They've had the long form of the interview with you and passed.

I know a bunch of people like that, but I've only worked with so many people. A startup would exhaust their friends pretty fast and be back to interviewing strangers.

cyberlurker3y ago

I love creating these lists in my head. Sometimes when I do a good job, I imagine myself on someone else's good list. Often when I am struggling with something I worry someone is visualizing me on their bad list.

Over time it has made me question if my short list is as good as I think it is. Maybe I am biased and only observed good/bad work for people on either list. Also people change over time and take on new responsibilities that change their work.

1 more reply

adam_arthurOP3y ago

It's pretty easy to tell when you're managing a team and familiar with the code. You can't quantify it explicitly, but it can be quite clear.

In my experience the top 20% of employees do 80% of the work

Jensson3y ago

> In my experience the top 20% of employees do 80% of the work

That would make them 16x as productive compared to the bottom 80% who does 20% of the work. So 10x seems to be roughly the same thing as the 80/20 rule.

fiddlerwoaroof3y ago

I think the ideal is to have both in some proportion: like 10% slow coders dedicated to maintaining the structure of the application. And 90% people who can churn out features quickly

ta9883y ago

I agree but I would say: The ratio varies depending on the kind of product and especially on where you want to be on the spectrum of speed, security, safety, time to client...

ipaddr3y ago

It's 10x the worst not average developer so it becomes 2x the average.

Besides a 10x developer cannot be uncovered through a leetcode test or a coding test. A 10x developer pushes back on requirements, bridges gaps.. identifies issues early.. it's about making things happen not typing faster or knowing the stack well

adam_arthurOP3y ago

It's definitely 10x the average. But exact numbers are going to be subject to debate.

The worst are net negative productivity

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsadam_arthur3y ago0 comments

Most growth companies have an endless bucket of work.

Somebody who produces 2x at same quality of work is worth 2x the other person, fairly objectively.

It's common to find people who produce up to 10x the average. Anyone in a startup or growth oriented company is smart to optimize for these people.

The most proficient and fast coders often write higher quality code too, in my experience.

Exception might be like an AI/ML based startup with a lot of theoretical challenges. Most companies much more business/rule oriented though

0 comments

arethuza3y ago

"have an endless bucket of work"

Developers are people and all people are different - we all have our strengths and weaknesses.

vorpalhex3y ago

How do you actually measure 2x or 10x workload while keeping quality the same?

If you never need code to be readable or documented I can write it quite quickly. If you want something other humans can have a hope of maintaining, that might take a bit.

sokoloff3y ago

I think everyone who has been in tech for 7 years has a short list of people they’d want on their 4-person tech team and a longer list of people they wouldn’t.

That I can’t tell you to two decimal places exactly how much better the first list is than the second doesn’t mean I can’t tell who’s on which list with high fidelity/repeatability.

lordnacho3y ago

But those are people you've actually worked with day to day, right? They've had the long form of the interview with you and passed.

I know a bunch of people like that, but I've only worked with so many people. A startup would exhaust their friends pretty fast and be back to interviewing strangers.

cyberlurker3y ago

1 more reply

adam_arthurOP3y ago

It's pretty easy to tell when you're managing a team and familiar with the code. You can't quantify it explicitly, but it can be quite clear.

In my experience the top 20% of employees do 80% of the work

Jensson3y ago

> In my experience the top 20% of employees do 80% of the work

That would make them 16x as productive compared to the bottom 80% who does 20% of the work. So 10x seems to be roughly the same thing as the 80/20 rule.

fiddlerwoaroof3y ago

I think the ideal is to have both in some proportion: like 10% slow coders dedicated to maintaining the structure of the application. And 90% people who can churn out features quickly

ta9883y ago

I agree but I would say: The ratio varies depending on the kind of product and especially on where you want to be on the spectrum of speed, security, safety, time to client...

ipaddr3y ago

It's 10x the worst not average developer so it becomes 2x the average.

adam_arthurOP3y ago

It's definitely 10x the average. But exact numbers are going to be subject to debate.

The worst are net negative productivity

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse