I've rarely seen those 10x engineers to bring massive long term added value. Most are/were well aware of their skills and detested working on anything but newest and shiniest, desperately trying to make work a fun park for them regardless whether its actually a good idea for the company giving them paychecks.
Which works for some time, or when extensively coached, but eventually they move since their time is oh so precious and now you have the rest of the team to work with their work. Not that great.
Then people wonder or complain when business doesn't appreciate devs. How would you look at folks who are critical to your success yet often don't have your company's best interest at the center of their efforts.
To use your terms, those 1x devs always end up maintaining and evolving that code of 10x guys. Their velocity with changes is massively lower and error rate is significantly higher compared to code created by 1x devs. This is what business sees and there is not much love for that.
> I've rarely seen those 10x engineers to bring massive long term added value.
I've seen it first-hand. We ended up building a support team around the 10x:er to keep things working, but it was easily worth it. It worked very well for the life span of the product - about a decade.
Many eventually graduated to pretty fancy places. They learned a lot. This particular 10x:er loved sharing knowledge via pair-programming.
Well, he was always in command of the keyboard (typing insanely fast), but you'd sit next to him and he'd delight in explaining. Eventually you would challenge him on something and then the collaboration/adventure began.
I have had the most intellectually exhilarating times of my life working with this guy.
So yeah, 10x:ers can bring massive value if they are wired to be really nice.
I'm a bit jealous. I currently work with an exceptional engineer but he is very condescending and acts somewhat pissed off by "simple" questions or people asking for help. The product is fantastic thanks to his work and I am learning, I think, what it really means to attempt to write excellent code - he really nit picks the hell out of my PRs - but to be honest I wish I didn't have to work with him. He has really demotivated me.
>Then people wonder or complain when business doesn't appreciate devs. How would you look at folks who are critical to your success yet often don't have your company's best interest at the center of their efforts.
Does the company have my best interests at the center of their efforts or I can be shown the door at any given moment to please shareholders? No hard feeling pls, it's just business and I have only one life to enjoy.
Which works for some time, or when extensively coached, but eventually they move since their time is oh so precious and now you have the rest of the team to work with their work. Not that great.
Then people wonder or complain when business doesn't appreciate devs. How would you look at folks who are critical to your success yet often don't have your company's best interest at the center of their efforts.
To use your terms, those 1x devs always end up maintaining and evolving that code of 10x guys. Their velocity with changes is massively lower and error rate is significantly higher compared to code created by 1x devs. This is what business sees and there is not much love for that.