What is a 10x Engineer?
An engineer who is 10 times more productive than the average engineer. Which means they write 10x more code than anyone else.
Right? Wrong!
That’s not a 10x engineer. It’s literally quite impossible to produce 10 times more code than other engineers on your own.
Software engineering is a team activity but I believe that at each stage of your career, one can demonstrate behaviours that have the potential to 10x team performance.
Uplift others
A few years ago, I worked with an engineer who rarely spoke with the team.
He was described to me as a 10x Engineer because he was producing a lot of output.
Very senior.
Quiet guy.
Always coding.
At first, I assumed he was just shy.
But over time, I realized something was off.
Every time we had an incident, he’d jump in, fix it, and disappear.
Quite convenient, but…
No notes.
No documentation.
No explanation to anyone of what was wrong / what he did.
One day, I asked if he could walk the team through a fix just so we could all learn from it.
He politely declined and said:
“It’s just faster if I fix these.”
His answer and overall behaviour were not ok and he knew it - because we had discussed this with him numerous times.
A real senior engineer doesn’t only fix problems.
They take others on a journey with them when possible.
They teach others how to fix issues.
They turn one person’s knowledge into team-wide velocity.
That’s what a 10x engineer really looks like. When everyone becomes better as a result of their actions.
Not someone who hoards knowledge.
But someone who shares it generously.
