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Discussion on: What are your thoughts on the whole 10x engineer viral discussion?

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Sean G. Wright

Here are my thoughts:

Honestly, I feel that this thread makes a couple logical errors or assumptions:

Being a developer with a top-tier technical skill set means being at the bottom-tier in all other areas.

Technical skills are not orthogonal to all others. Strong engineers can be strong socially, in leadership, planning, creativity, empathy, business acumen, ect...

Software developers are humans and multi-faceted in their skills. Having more of one skill doesn't require having less of another.

The perspective of the 10x twitter thread is naive in its understanding of individuals.

The technical skills have overwhelming importance in terms of value to a company compared to all other skills.

I can only speak to this anecdotally, but the software developers that had the biggest impact, at the organizations I've worked with, were not the genius 10x midnight hacker engineers. (This can also be said for the developers that had the biggest impact on my career, growth, and feeling of self-fulfillment).

It's always the developers that:

  • Bring teams together
  • Have strong communication skills
  • Have a willingness to learn (and be wrong)
  • Delegate work they know other people are more skilled in
  • Are good at time management
  • Have a desire to see others succeed with themselves

... that have the greatest impact.

Yes, someone with the above qualities could also be a great technical engineer, but having that technical prowess, exclusively, won't bring lasting (I'd almost any) success to a team or organization.