I think it really changes by domain.
Full stack web development for example is about being a hard working programmer who writes good, clear well tested code. It doesn't take a genius to do this work well, it does take a lot of hard work and dedication.
I don't think I've ever worked with someone who produced 10x the value of his colleagues, no. Maybe there are a few who are the only ones in the company that can solve some esoteric bug because they've been in the company very long and possess the bigger picture, or because they are more talented or whatever. But that still doesn't make them "10x". It makes them more valuable and that's it. Not 10x.
A real "10x" dev is someone who gets product to focus on the right requirements or solves all kinds of miscommunications in the team and company, it has very little to do with actual coding.
That’s more like a 10X SWE. There are definitely 10X programmers out there, but they could be horrible SWEs (and often don’t work well in teams at all even if they can still create billion dollar products..though I guess 10x wouldn’t be a sufficient description at that point). Then again, I guess it depends on what you mean by dev.
Possibly, I've just never met one yet.
That's saying the guy contributes like 2 teams in his company, pretty insane. But again, I've always worked in companies that produced relatively straightforward software...the problems we are dealign with don't require a tremendous talent or creativity. They require patience, attention to detail, communicating well with product, hard work, etc. I could even see how being extremely talented can work against you sometimes doing this work. So there's not so much value in being 150 IQ (or whatever measure of ability we want to use) imo doing what I do. Sure you will be faster and better but no, you won't produce like 10 people.
A lot of 10x programmers you can’t really work with. They go off and create something like Minecraft, the company gets started around that, and then sold for a billion dollars.
Exactly. I don't build Minecrafts. I build big old web applications ...add a Python end point, create some React UI, all very repetitive and huge talent is pretty much wasted on that.
