058: Do 10x Developers Exist?

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Sometimes, people on the internet are wrong. And this week, that person is Tim, who said something inaccurate about the .net (dotnet) framework. Thankfully, our de facto .net ambassador, Nathan Strutz, sent us a recording that shed light on the current state of .net, its open source architecture, its ability to run on many platforms, and its sweet, sweet modern features. Thank you so much Nathan for keeping us honest! And, keep those recordings coming!

For our main topic, we discuss the concept of the "10x Developer". This notion has its roots in bona fide research; however, much of the nuance has been lost in translation. When many people talk about the 10x Developer, what they imply is that there are great developers that are 10-times more productive than the average developer. This is where the reality parts way from the research. What the research found is that, in software engineering, the best engineers are 10-times more productive than the worst engineers. Which is, perhaps, a much more palatable and relatable comparison.

Of course, few developers work in a vacuum. And, when you're part of a team that is part of a company that is driven by a given culture, there's so much more to being productive than one's ability to jam out code. If you're not working in an environment that actively caters to and encourages agile practices, no amount of coding velocity can escape the gravity of inaction.

Also, is TJ Holowaychuk even a real person? Or, is he an artificial persona concocted by a consortium of elite programmers who were keen to show the world what a 10x Developer might look like? We may never know!

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With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.