I know one who is outstanding, not a 10x but a 100x. Here's a short and incomplete list of some of the things he did:
Publish games (with an 's') on 16 bit computers when he was a teenagers (and good games at that)
Industrial software to minimize cuts and losses when cutting sheets of metal
Write tools easing the creation of games for smartphone when they came out and put a commercial game in the top 3 of the Apple appstore
Before that : he wrote several apps for Nokia phones (pre Android era) and serve them using a provisioning server he wrote and hosted himself
Write code to port Java code to COBOL for legacy bank infrastructure
Write some sort of Google maps before the days, from aerial pictures he managed to fetch through some people he knew
Created a software company, got funding
Got interested I cryptocurrencies, wrote several wallets, including for smartphones
Wrote servers transcoding videos in real time
Wrote an Amiga mod player for the Atari ST (that one was really cool
Find and write detailed reports about JVM bugs
There are many standards he knows by heart
Countless websites
He was doing ML before it LLM broke through: teaching 3D "things" to learn to move
Monitoring and visualization on embedded devices for solar panels/micro inverters efficiency
He moved to devops and loves it. And he still codes.
His secret is a life of passion for the trade.
There s nothing he s worked on that didn't become faster, cleaner. There s not a single place he s been too where he didn't have things to teach people (and things to learn too: passion and curiosity).
He knows so many languages: from assembly to C to C++ to Java to Kotlin to Lua to ML languages to so many scripting languages.
Front end, back end, from huge servers to tiny embedded stuff. Dumbphones. Smartphones.
The only family of language I know he s never done is Lisp (so I get some creds).
He s not just a developer: he manages servers too, both for fun and professionally... and found a recent love for devops (working for a major payment processor as I type this).
He s 50 y/o and he ll kick your sorry ass like you have no idea.
He happens to be a very good friend of mine and when I hear that there are no 10x programmers I cannot help but laugh in a condescending manner.
He is, unlike me, humble. He ll say he doesn't know much. He s always got a desire to learn.
And I think most of all: when he was 30 he thought programmers who were 50 had many things to teach him.
Comments
I know one who is outstanding, not a 10x but a 100x. Here's a short and incomplete list of some of the things he did:
He moved to devops and loves it. And he still codes.His secret is a life of passion for the trade.
There s nothing he s worked on that didn't become faster, cleaner. There s not a single place he s been too where he didn't have things to teach people (and things to learn too: passion and curiosity).
He knows so many languages: from assembly to C to C++ to Java to Kotlin to Lua to ML languages to so many scripting languages.
Front end, back end, from huge servers to tiny embedded stuff. Dumbphones. Smartphones.
The only family of language I know he s never done is Lisp (so I get some creds).
He s not just a developer: he manages servers too, both for fun and professionally... and found a recent love for devops (working for a major payment processor as I type this).
He s 50 y/o and he ll kick your sorry ass like you have no idea.
He happens to be a very good friend of mine and when I hear that there are no 10x programmers I cannot help but laugh in a condescending manner.
He is, unlike me, humble. He ll say he doesn't know much. He s always got a desire to learn.
And I think most of all: when he was 30 he thought programmers who were 50 had many things to teach him.
So basically a real world Gilfoyle.
I do not doubt that 100x exist but I anecdotally I've seen that 10x do exist.
This 10x was actually married which I've found the most incredible part.
Chuck Norris?