A lukewarm take on the topic of 10x developers, based on real-life events.
How to turn a 10x developer into a 1x developer
- hire the most talented developer you can find;
- put the developer on a project where multiple teams share the code base;
- the team has to have a product owner, a business analyst, and not less than two project managers, all of them can make product decisions;
- final product decisions are actually made by an executive who is accessible once a week for 30 minutes;
- but the same executive can also come by at 7 p.m. and scratch everything that was done during the day;
- the code reviews are mandatory, no pair programming allowed;
- there should be no limit on how long a code review can wait and how many iterations it can take;
- the testing environment should be unstable and inconsistent;
- let anyone ask them questions at any time because the 10x developer knows a lot, and sharing knowledge is essential.
How to turn a 1x developer into a 10x developer:
- take any senior developer in your team;
- separate them from the rest of the team, put them on a mini-team with 2-3 other people;
- let them focus on a single well-scoped project for days/weeks;
- the mini-team members should have all the skills to move forward without being blocked;
- one person should make all the product decisions, and that person is available at any time;
- track progress and update priorities weekly;
- let them work on a separate branch - no code reviews, no merges, no conflicts;
- take them off all the "obligatory" meetings, let them organize their own processes;
- other team members are not allowed to bother them with questions/discussions.
On a slightly serious note
The most time-consuming factor is communication - how fast and how efficiently we can convey decisions. Naturally, by increasing speed, we lose quality and vice versa. Maintaining this dynamic balance is what makes it a tough but exciting job. Sometimes you might prefer a steady team over a high-speed 10x developer.
There are some questions to help with choosing though. How long do you plan to maintain this product? Eventually, people leave - what happens if they leave? What is at stake - the existence of your company? The well-being of your family? Your career? Your yearly bonus?
Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash
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