In Search of the Exceptional: Unpacking the Traits of 10x Engineers

0:00 Scott: Let's just say, for instance,

0:01 you and I have a room of 100 people. We've been told there is one person here that is a bona fide 10x.

0:08 We've got 60 minutes to identify that person.

0:12 Could we do it? And how would we do it?

0:32 Brad: I forgot.

0:33 Scott: Yeah,

0:34 that's a great question.

0:35 How many CTOs does it take to get a podcast started,

0:37 Brad?

0:38 Brad: Welcome to another episode of the How Many CTOs Does It Take podcast.

0:43 I'm Brad Hefta-Gaub. This is my co-host.

0:46 Scott: Scott Bullrad.

0:48 Brad: And we're here to talk about the challenges of being a CTO,

0:52 leading engineering teams,

0:54 getting the best out of developers.

0:59 I, you and I were chatting recently, Scott,

1:02 about the question of velocity.

1:05 And one of the conversations that came out of that was we talked about the idea of, you know, I think that when business owners say,

1:14 I want everyone working, you know, I want velocity,

1:16 velocity,

1:16 I had the hypothesis that I think they all want every engineer to be a 10x engineer.

1:22 Scott: Mm

1:22 Brad: And

1:22 Scott: -hmm.

1:22 Brad: I think you said to me at that point.

1:24 Well, what exactly is a 10x engineer and what are the attributes of a 10x engineer?

1:30 So I figured let's talk about that.

1:32 What do we think a 10x engineer really is?

1:34 Scott: Yeah. Well,

1:35 let's answer that question.

1:36 And I think we start with a different question,

1:38 which is, do we believe that it's true that there are 10X engineers?

1:43 Brad: I do.

1:44 Scott: I do also.

1:45 Okay, easy.

1:46 Well, okay, now move on. Onward.

1:48 Okay.

1:52 Brad: Yes, I think I mean, well,

1:55 you know, like what what is it you've said to me before, like objective measures are one thing, but oftentimes we know it in our gut.

2:04 Scott: Yeah.

2:04 Brad: Yeah.

2:05 And I think that like, yeah,

2:09 my gut is like, yeah, there's engineers that I've known and worked with in my career where it's just like, yeah,

2:15 that that engineer, that guy or gal gets stuff done like.

2:20 way, way more impact than everyone else on the team.

2:25 Scott: Yeah. And what is, so I think, yeah. And what is it? What are the parts of that?

2:30 If we were going to make a scorecard to evaluate checklist,

2:32 what would we put on it?

2:34 Well,

2:34 I have a few thoughts. I'll kick us off.

2:36 Brad: Yeah.

2:36 Scott: Let's go back and forth. We'll ping pong it back and forth.

2:38 Brad: Sounds good.

2:40 Scott: I mean, the first thing you have to say is that some people are just smarter than other people.

2:47 Brad: for sure

2:49 Scott: I cannot dunk a basketball, but LeBron James can dunk a basketball.

2:55 We both play basketball.

2:56 LeBron James and I both play basketball.

2:59 He can dunk. I cannot dunk.

3:02 Other than that, we're totally the same.

3:04 And the reason he can dunk is because he is taller than me by about a foot.

3:12 Brad: Yeah.

3:12 Scott: And so now that's a physical capability.

3:15 I would, you know, I said LeBron and I were the same. That's probably not true.

3:20 He probably has a better natural gift intuition for basketball than

3:27 Brad: Well,

3:28 he's

3:28 Scott: I

3:28 Brad: also

3:28 Scott: have.

3:28 Brad: done tens of thousands of more hours of basketball in his lifetime than you have in your equivalent lifetime.

3:36 Scott: It's 100% true.

3:37 And I would then flip it around and say, I probably have a more natural intuition for how a computer works than LeBron.

3:44 Now, I've never met LeBron. He might be running his own network at his house totally nerding out on his own time, whatever.

3:50 I have no idea.

3:51 I think probably not,

3:53 but he might be.

3:53 But like I have more of an intuition for how computers work. He has a more intuition for how players tend to run around a basketball court.

4:02 Brad: I think that's probably because of, you know, like you said, like how much time you've put into it, how much interest you paid in it, how much, you know, it was a curiosity that you had early in your life. It was a curiosity that you had early in his life, probably.

4:14 And so my

4:15 Scott: Yeah,

4:15 Brad: instinct

4:15 Scott: but

4:15 Brad: is,

4:15 Scott: I think there's a nature versus nurture question.

4:20 I think there is a nature piece there.

4:22 Brad: all right, I'm willing to accept that for the 10x engineers out there, there's probably a component of.

4:28 nature that exists in these 10x engineers which i think is your point okay

4:32 Scott: Yeah, that is my point.

4:33 That's exactly my point.

4:35 Brad: and then i was kind of like leaning on the nurture piece of it and i but i also think

4:40 there's probably a nurture piece so if you're going to ping with nature i'm going to pong with nurture and i think i think that the 10x engineers that i have known the 10x engineers that i've worked with in my life

4:53 had this just innate unstoppable curiosity and interest in in writing code and and and making computers do cool shit and

5:08 Scott: Mm-hmm.

5:09 Brad: um and and probably like if if you sort of assume all engineers have at least some of that

5:20 The 10x engineers had that thing,

5:22 this idea that they couldn't stop just thinking about engineering,

5:27 thinking about making computers do things.

5:30 That was dialed all the way up.

5:32 So that's my Pong team name.

5:34 Scott: okay um i'm going to add something to that with so many oh gosh i got like a list of things in my mind actually i want to pause for a second i think i've worked with

5:45 less than half a dozen 10xers in my career yeah

5:48 Brad: Yeah, that's what I think we had a podcast about this where we're talking about velocity and this topic came up. And we tried to estimate the percentage and I threw out a very small number one in a thousand you sort of said I think it's closer closer to one in 100.

6:03 And then I kind of I took that challenge and I was like yeah yeah I guess you know out of the thousand

6:07 Scott: yeah

6:07 Brad: or

6:07 Scott: maybe

6:07 Brad: so engineers.

6:08 Scott: it's a little higher but yeah okay so all right

6:10 Brad: But I think a dozen or two dozen is right like to me.

6:12 For me, I feel like I've worked with a thousand engineers in my career over the last 30 plus years.

6:16 And I would say like, you know, I feel like I was at places that attracted really amazing talent.

6:21 And it

6:22 Scott: Yeah.

6:22 Brad: still was, you know, 20 of the people I worked with would be really in this category that I think of as 10x engineer.

6:29 Scott: Yeah.

6:30 Yeah.

6:30 Okay.

6:31 So you talked about they just have a desire to do it.

6:34 I'll come back and say.

6:37 The best engineers I've worked with have an abstract understanding of how different technologies are tools for different jobs.

6:47 Now, they don't always, they're not like always using different technologies, but I'm thinking of one in particular and he could very easily articulate like, okay, well.

6:59 this is what java is good at and this is what c sharp is good at and this is what python is good at and this is what ruby's good at and the reason they're good at that is because they even the reason they could say those languages were good at those things is because the 10xer even sort of knew the history like oh look java was really it was these bunch of guys they were working in c++ that was their reaction to challenges they faced there so they even they love it so much like you were saying that they even know

7:26 So because it is an evolution of ideas,

7:29 they know that and they can articulate that as well.

7:34 But I think knowing how those things work so intuitively then in turn allows them, the combination of the two things we're saying here,

7:42 allows them to use it.

7:44 Use these tools in really creative and powerful ways.

7:48 Brad: Yeah,

7:49 I think I 100% agree with that. That's a great one.

7:51 And I feel like I'll ping back off of that one with something similar.

7:58 And I think this is going to be a little controversial, but I'm going to go out on a limb on this one.

8:03 The 10Xers that I worked with.

8:07 They all had really, really good computer science fundamentals.

8:14 Now, many of them got there through classical computer science learning,

8:20 like they had a computer science degree.

8:23 But what I really mean by that is like they understand what an operating system really is doing. They understand what what memory management is all about. They understand.

8:33 And the idea of, you know, you know, how how what,

8:39 you know, data structures like they really understand these things at a really.

8:43 So like we think about like the classic like computer science degree, it's like you take a data structures class,

8:49 you take a languages class and that languages class exposes you all different types of languages.

8:53 You take a operating system class,

8:55 you take a compiler class where you build a compiler. You know, these are.

8:58 These

8:58 Scott: Mm hmm.

8:58 Brad: are the classes that are in a traditional computer science program,

9:02 and you didn't necessarily have to get that degree,

9:04 but you have gotten that fundamental education. So I feel like all the 10Xers I've worked with just really understood that stuff very well.

9:16 Scott: Yeah,

9:16 that's true.

9:18 Okay,

9:19 here's another one.

9:21 They all are capable and are very effective actually at working independently.

9:28 In fact,

9:29 actually,

9:30 they might even,

9:32 their strength might be working independently. I have to think about that one for a second.

9:36 Brad: Interesting.

9:36 Scott: But the notion of going and sitting down at their computer.

9:42 and to use an expression hammering something out like

9:45 Brad: Yeah.

9:45 Scott: they're good at like i'm gonna go get this done right and often often i'm thinking of one person i'm out because we joked about this person the rest of us would be talking about something and this person just was over their computer and just did it right they have a uh they have a

10:07 some sort of internal intangible quality of just getting a thing done.

10:11 Brad: Yeah, I agree with that statement.

10:12 I agree with you. You sort of said two things there.

10:14 One was the sort of like the desire to just get it done, the innate quality of just getting something done,

10:19 hammering it out.

10:20 And then you sort of added in this independent model. And I think that's true.

10:26 Like, I think when I really think about the 10xers that I've worked with, they all.

10:32 all functioned very very effectively by themselves right now they that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't good at working with an organization with a group of people and with a team but they are really good working on their own

10:44 Scott: That's right.

10:44 That's all I was trying to say.

10:45 I would actually say of the ones I'm thinking of, they're actually all really good at working with each other too.

10:51 And they all like to do things like pair program.

10:54 In fact, I think in general they think two heads is better than one.

10:58 Brad: Yeah,

10:58 I think that's fair too.

11:00 So they're completely effective at working on their own and hammering something out.

11:03 And they are also very open and collaborative in working with another 10Xer.

11:12 Scott: Yeah,

11:12 yeah.

11:13 Or teaching.

11:13 They're all good teachers, the ones I'm thinking of.

11:17 Brad: I think that's fair, too.

11:18 Scott: It's pinged back to you.

11:20 Brad: All right, so let's see.

11:21 I believe that all the 10xers I've ever worked with were also really good at understanding the objective,

11:31 the assignment.

11:33 They were good and I and I and I would mostly say that's like they were good at understanding the needs of whoever the.

11:41 customer stakeholder were,

11:43 even when those needs might be a little bit more

11:48 uh ethereal like oh i'm just trying to make this super fast the super fast uh you know raid disk system over a network or something like that that's not necessarily like i you know i'm talking in the customer language but they really understood the fundamental problem of what they were trying to accomplish

12:05 Scott: The listener cannot hear me nodding my head vigorously in agreement with that. I was going to, my,

12:11 your pong back to me, I was going to say.

12:13 They they're very good at taking whatever requirements are handed to them.

12:20 I would actually branch it in two ways. I was going to say they're good in taking the requirements and turning it into a plan.

12:27 But I would actually say that here's another piece that they're good at.

12:31 Frequently requirements are unclear.

12:33 Customers, users, whatever,

12:34 aren't very good at articulating what they want.

12:37 Good at sort

12:38 Brad: Yep.

12:38 Scott: of synthesizing that together and sort of saying,

12:40 okay,

12:41 I think what you're saying, sometimes they don't even say this. They just, they think it's like, okay, I think what this person is saying is this.

12:47 And then turning that into something and often coming back and saying,

12:51 is this what you want?

12:52 Brad: I built it because this is what I knew you

12:55 Scott: Yeah,

12:55 Brad: wanted.

12:55 Scott: those are definitely that.

12:57 So, you know, it's interesting coming back to the independence point.

13:00 There is some EQ there.

13:02 Brad: Yeah.

13:02 Scott: You know, there is definitely some EQ.

13:04 Brad: Huge EQ.

13:06 Huge EQ.

13:07 And I think that like if as we're still continuing down the road of like what are examples of the attributes that these 10Xers that we've worked with have,

13:14 I don't want to get into the realm of like.

13:17 Oh, and if you don't have that, then this is a place

13:20 Scott: Yeah

13:20 Brad: you might get stuck on becoming a 10 Xer.

13:22 But I will say that like that, that EQ piece.

13:27 Yeah,

13:27 I've seen some people that are right on the cusp of being 10 Xers, but that they're missing that piece.

13:32 And that keeps them from really achieving.

13:37 the potential oh

13:37 Scott: Yeah.

13:39 Okay,

13:39 let's see here.

13:40 Oh,

13:40 I just pinged EQ,

13:42 so I was ponging back to you.

13:44 Brad: man okay all

13:45 Scott: While you're thinking,

13:46 I want to go back to the very first thing you said to fill some time.

13:50 They love

13:50 Brad: right

13:50 Scott: it.

13:51 They love it.

13:52 Brad: they love it they

13:54 Scott: This is fun.

13:55 Brad: love it yeah it's not it's not work to them right it's like it's it's it's it's fun they love it it's a challenge they love that

14:04 they love learning new things they're

14:05 Scott: Yeah.

14:06 Brad: absolutely the first people to you know be interested in the rant the new language you know

14:13 because it's like for them it's all like oh yeah let me learn about this new tech that may in fact solve a piece of the puzzle that is always out there right they recognize yeah okay i i feel like well okay i want to

14:28 If you're ponging to me with the EQ,

14:31 and I feel like I want to say there's a – I kind of jokingly want to say they type hella fast,

14:39 right?

14:40 Scott: That's true.

14:40 Brad: It is actually true though,

14:42 right?

14:43 Like they're all really fast at writing large amounts of code.

14:48 Scott: For sure.

14:49 I've worked at multiple companies,

14:51 by the way, where we have for fun, we have had what do you call it when you have a speed typing contest and there's a name for them.

14:58 Brad: Type typing speed type test.

15:01 Scott: Just yeah.

15:02 Yeah,

15:03 for sure.

15:04 Brad: One of my favorite one of my favorite 10 extras that I worked with.

15:11 Such an amazing guy.

15:12 He was.

15:14 He was at Real Networks, kind of like one of the lead architects of the early streaming servers.

15:19 He went on to become the founder of Isilon and then Vic's success there.

15:26 His name is Sujal Patel. He's an amazing guy.

15:30 he is such a fast typer so fast but i would say and if if sujal ever listens to this and gives me crap about it i'll i'll i'll have a smirk on my face and say yep uh he wasn't necessarily the most accurate typer but he was such a fast typer that he would type stuff it would be wrong and he would delete it and type the correct version before you would notice that he had typed it wrong That's he great. was that you

15:56 that fast of a typer he was just like and i swear like his backspace key or his delete key whichever operating system he was on that was the one that was the most worn out

16:09 Scott: Okay, so some of the 10Xers I know and some of them not,

16:14 it's not a universal trait,

16:15 but some of them definitely have that engineer thing where they think they can do something in an hour.

16:20 I think sometimes

16:21 Brad: Oh, for sure.

16:21 Scott: I see this.

16:23 We talked about a strength is they can see a solution quickly,

16:26 but sometimes it misses some of the edge cases.

16:30 And it's like,

16:30 oh, I can get that done in an hour.

16:32 And then they get into it and it's like,

16:33 oh, actually, there's a little more here to it than I thought.

16:35 I've definitely seen that.

16:36 Brad: But you know, what's what's funny about that, the corollary of that is that when that happens to them, they love it so much that that doesn't knock them off their game. They just go, oh, and then I had to solve it. Right.

16:47 Scott: Yeah.

16:47 Brad: And they come back and they're like,

16:49 oh, yeah, it actually took me three hours, not one,

16:52 because I found all these other corner cases that I also had to solve.

16:56 Scott: We haven't talked about this. I've assumed it's always excellent technical design.

17:01 Very rarely do they make errors in technical design.

17:05 I mean, I can think of one TEDx or I know who made a really big error in technical design,

17:09 still give them a hard time about it.

17:11 But in general,

17:13 the technical design is spot on out of the gate because I think that goes back to the nature piece I was talking about earlier.

17:21 which is they just have an intuition for designing things well

17:24 Brad: By the way, one of the things that this notion that they are great at design,

17:31 the notion that they have great EQ,

17:33 the notion that they sort of just have this ability to understand the problem,

17:39 that matrix of...

17:46 attributes that we're talking about clearly clearly indicates that a 10 xer is not about just writing code right like uh just give a bunch of tickets to an engineer and have them write that code um that that's not a 10 xer yeah

18:06 Scott: Correct.

18:08 Yeah.

18:09 Brad: So it's not about it's not necessarily about how quickly they complete tasks.

18:15 Scott: Correct.

18:16 Brad: And I think that's a misnomer that people assume that if you just had 10 extras, then 10 times more tasks would get done than are getting done.

18:27 It's sort of a side set of that,

18:29 right?

18:29 Like they solve things better.

18:32 They solve things more efficiently.

18:34 Scott: Yeah, and I would use the word that came to my mind and I know I've used a lot is leverage.

18:42 They solve things in ways that make it easier to solve future things.

18:50 or potentially

18:51 Brad: Yeah.

18:52 Scott: solve a bunch of future things that we don't you know it starts to embroider upon over engineering but like they solve you know maybe solve multiple problems in one and they think in a more

19:03 abstract way,

19:04 which

19:06 Brad: Yep.

19:06 Scott: I think drives a lot of that efficiency.

19:09 Not only can they do this task more efficiently,

19:11 the way they solved this task made 10 tasks down the road more efficient.

19:15 Brad: I agree with that 100%. Let me ask you, do you feel like we've have we have we enumerated the key attributes that matter or do you think there's more?

19:26 Scott: We've enumerated a lot of them.

19:28 What I was thinking about was you had a room of, let's just say,

19:34 for instance,

19:35 you and I have a room of 100 people.

19:39 And we know we've been told there is one person here that is a bona fide 10xer and then everybody else just is, you know, on the spectrum of, you know, the bell curve of talent.

19:51 Right.

19:52 And it's our job. We've got 60 minutes to identify that person.

19:56 Could we do it? And how would we do it?

19:59 I mean.

19:59 getting at the interviewing and the recruiting question which is how do you how do you find these people

20:06 Brad: Well, yeah,

20:07 that's a great question.

20:08 It's OK,

20:09 so I feel like I want to say, you know it when you see it.

20:13 But let me give an example of kind of the know it when you see it things that I'm used to seeing. Right.

20:22 That that thing that we mentioned that they it's just insatiable on their part, they're so curious that it's so fun for them, right?

20:30 Like they can't stop thinking

20:31 Scott: Mm

20:31 Brad: about code like that comes out very quickly when you ask them about the code that they've written,

20:41 right?

20:42 Which is one of why one of my favorite interview questions is tell me about the coolest piece of code you've ever written.

20:49 And the

20:50 Scott: Yes, yeah.

20:50 Brad: 10Xers come out with that. The answer to that question,

20:55 right,

20:56 is just filled with technical nuance.

21:02 You can see them light up when they're talking about the technical nuance of what they solved.

21:08 They speak fluidly and fluidly about the fluently and fluidly about the problem that they were solving and why that was an interesting problem. Right. So so even if they're not necessarily like they don't even necessarily have to be the most.

21:27 eloquent but you can you you you see it immediately and hear it immediately in the way they talk about the problems they've solved that were interesting to them that's

21:37 Scott: Mm hmm.

21:37 Brad: that's my answer i don't know uh

21:39 Scott: That's a good one. I'll add to that.

21:41 Do you know Joe Heitzberg from Seattle here?

21:43 Brad: yeah i think so yeah okay

21:45 Scott: He's been around a while now. He's currently the organizer of the AI Tinkers Meetup.

21:53 Brad: yeah yeah

21:53 Scott: which has chapters all around the world he's a real tinker he's a great guy and a long time ago i was talking to him and he was telling me how he loved to hire cs students right out of school and i was saying oh joe i find it such so hit or miss you never know what you're going to get i was like how do you how do you do it what's your secret for finding

22:15 Well, and then he said, oh,

22:16 well,

22:16 I found just great people, great people. I said,

22:18 well, what's your secret? How do you find them?

22:19 He said, I asked them,

22:21 what is the biggest or most meaningful, I'm not sure the right word to use,

22:27 project that you've worked on outside of school?

22:29 Brad: Yeah,

22:30 totally.

22:31 Scott: And when you find the kid that's running the eBay of Bangladesh from his dorm room,

22:36 you're like,

22:36 boom,

22:37 I want that

22:37 Brad: Yeah,

22:37 Scott: guy.

22:38 Brad: totally.

22:39 Yeah,

22:39 totally.

22:42 Yeah,

22:42 that's very

22:42 Scott: And

22:42 Brad: similar.

22:42 Scott: those, you know, right.

22:43 Brad: to the question I ask and the types of answers you're looking for,

22:46 right?

22:47 Right?

22:49 Scott: That's right.

22:49 Yeah.

22:50 So yeah, I guess one way you filter out is you say who find ways to identify who loves this.

22:56 Brad: Yeah.

22:57 Scott: Right.

22:57 So here, here's here's actually a way I would I would put this on the list.

23:03 Who considers themselves thoroughly fluent in two programming languages?

23:09 Because for me, you know, having

23:13 Brad: And you're saying that as opposed

23:14 Scott: to

23:14 Brad: to one or at least two.

23:17 Scott: one,

23:17 Brad: Yeah,

23:17 Scott: at

23:17 Brad: yeah, yeah.

23:18 Scott: least two, right?

23:19 As opposed to one. Because when you work with the second one.

23:22 At least from my personal experience, and I think I've talked to others about this,

23:26 when you work with the second language deeply,

23:29 you get a better understanding of the computer,

23:32 right?

23:35 Where

23:35 Brad: Well,

23:35 Scott: it was a by better

23:35 Brad: the way,

23:35 Scott: kind

23:35 Brad: this is

23:36 Scott: of like

23:36 Brad: why this is 100

23:37 Scott: the language is like a shadow and like it's a shadow of the computer kind of and you get a better understanding of the actual computer.

23:43 Brad: percent agree with you. And that's one of the reasons why I think that like one of the most valuable courses in that computer science degree,

23:50 if you're taking a formal computer science degree, one of the most valuable courses is your languages class,

23:54 because the whole point behind that course is it's not it's about exposing you to all kinds of different types of languages.

24:00 just you know like functional

24:01 Scott: Mm hmm.

24:02 Brad: languages versus you know procedural languages versus you know it's just it's like so important to understand like the types of shadows that can be cast on the computer to use your shadow analogy yeah

24:14 Scott: Yeah,

24:14 yeah, yeah.

24:15 Okay,

24:16 so here's another here's another question I would ask I don't know exactly how I'd frame it, but something like this.

24:21 I would go around the room and make every person.

24:25 write down things that they are religious about when it comes to this kind of work

24:31 Brad: Oh, interesting.

24:32 Okay.

24:32 Tell me about how you then filter that information.

24:35 Scott: there are certain types of things that people are religious about that are a signal to me that oh actually their understanding of this is not very sophisticated right i'm going to use

24:49 A popular one in our industry as an example, I'm not sure it's perfect,

24:52 tabs or spaces.

24:53 Brad: Yeah, totally.

24:54 Scott: Hey, actually, in my view, tabs or spaces doesn't matter as long as everyone just agrees on one or the other, because the problem is the problem is the mismatch.

25:04 You know, and so I think you could get a sense by what people are religious about to understand their actual talent as an engineer. Right.

25:15 Brad: I think that's fair.

25:17 Scott: I'm not sure what I would actually be looking for or not looking for,

25:20 but again,

25:20 it comes back to I see what I know, but I feel like I would see green and red flags. I'd see things like, oh, that's smart.

25:27 That's real, real smart what that person's saying.

25:28 And I'd see things where like that person is being religious about something that I don't think that somebody should be religious about.

25:37 Now maybe it's me,

25:38 of course.

25:38 Brad: I feel like one of the I'll tell a quick story about that, the kind of the tab spaces thing.

25:44 I remember the very first time I became a manager of a team.

25:51 um and i was a pretty still pretty junior engineer but i had you know risen through the ranks and people are like yeah this guy knows what he's doing and the team needed a leader and i went to one of the more senior engineers on the team and i was kind of like you know our code base is kind of a mess we don't really have any kind of coding standard it's kind of you know joe's files look totally different than bob's files it's like

26:12 kind of pain and he's like yeah we should definitely have a coding standard i said cool you're super experienced what should we do and he's just like well i would accept any coding standard uh and i said wait don't but you're but i'm asking you because i really think you're an expert and he's just like well this is what i do at home in my own time but and we could do that and i'll accept that

26:37 But that's

26:37 Scott: Right.

26:38 Brad: very different than our existing code base.

26:40 Our existing code base is closer to this standard over here.

26:44 And I'd be happy to just use that standard.

26:46 And

26:47 Scott: Yeah.

26:47 Brad: at first I was like kind of like, oh,

26:49 what?

26:49 I didn't understand because I was so used to, you know, like my own code,

26:53 like because, you know, I wrote a lot of code, you know, and so I kind of was opinionated about my code. But that was a total eye opener.

26:59 I'm glad it happened early in my career because I was just like,

27:01 oh, yeah,

27:02 you know what? You're actually right.

27:03 Doesn't matter what the coding standard is so long as we all stick to it.

27:06 Scott: Yeah.

27:07 If somebody, I'm trying to think of what kinds of things that a 10 Xer would be religious about,

27:12 actually.

27:13 Brad: Yeah.

27:14 Scott: Or that a not 10Xer would be religious about.

27:18 Brad: Well, I think you're right that, you know, worrying about unimportant things is probably something that.

27:24 that a non-taxer would be worried about you know would be religious about i

27:29 Scott: Well,

27:29 actually,

27:30 here's a piece of it. Do you think 10Xers, an attribute of them,

27:35 is that they actually don't have a lot of religion?

27:38 Brad: actually think i might say that that might be their attribute i think that their attribute might be that they don't have a lot of religion

27:45 because they are exposed to so many things they're so curious about so many

27:50 So many things that they're going to be way more ecumenical, you know, just in

27:54 Scott: Or

27:54 Brad: general.

27:54 Scott: to go way back to Kevin Goldsmith,

27:56 it depends,

27:58 if

27:58 Brad: Totally.

27:58 Scott: you wanted me to, if you want the code to appear exactly the same everywhere it's printed,

28:06 I'm going to be religious about spaces.

28:08 Brad: Yeah,

28:09 exactly.

28:10 Totally.

28:13 Scott: So,

28:13 Brad: Well,

28:13 Scott: okay, so we

28:14 Brad: so and

28:14 Scott: got our room of 100,

28:15 we got our room of 100,

28:16 and what have we done to figure out who the 10xer is?

28:19 We've asked them what they're excited about,

28:20 we've asked them what they're religious about.

28:22 Brad: we've listened to them.

28:24 And if what comes out of their mouth is not like technically fluent,

28:30 clear examples of EQ,

28:33 clear examples of understanding,

28:36 you know, real computer science fundamentals.

28:39 clear examples of them just being incredibly passionate about learning new things and doing stuff then they're then they're filtered out immediately oh

28:47 Scott: Yeah, okay.

28:47 I get two more attributes that I'd look for.

28:50 I don't know exactly how I'd test for them.

28:52 Every 10xer I know, I hate to use this phrase, but has a can-do attitude.

28:57 Oh, we can do that.

28:58 We can

28:59 Brad: 100

28:59 Scott: figure that out.

28:59 Brad: 100

29:01 Scott: yeah there's got to be a way to do that yeah

29:02 Brad: Yeah,

29:03 Scott: they're they're instantly like they're they're already solving the problem they're not talking about like oh i think this is a bad idea i don't think we can do it or that would be too hard it's they're instantly like oh okay let's see how we can write to solutioning

29:14 Brad: agreed.

29:16 I 100% agree.

29:17 And like sometimes it can be really, really incredibly,

29:20 I've got,

29:20 you know, I can imagine, I remember some stories of like,

29:23 you know.

29:25 10xers that i you know like the ceo says we're gonna we need to do this hard thing and i'm like man that's gonna be hard but i'm sure we can come up with a solution i'm gonna put darren on this problem and you

29:36 Scott: Right.

29:36 Brad: know so darren and darren's like yeah okay that's gonna be hard but i can see a path i'm gonna go i have an idea i'm gonna go attack

29:44 Scott: I

29:44 Brad: it

29:45 Scott: can see a path.

29:46 That is, to me, that is the thing right there.

29:48 I can see a path.

29:51 They understand the system,

29:52 they understand the technology,

29:54 in their mind, they have it.

29:58 And so that actually leads to a question, and

30:00 Brad: Yeah.

30:01 Scott: this gets fundamentally at the microservices service-oriented architecture question.

30:06 In order to be a 10xer,

30:08 do you have to understand?

30:11 kind of the whole system whatever that system is it could be one component of a bigger system or it could be the enterprise the whole system and to flip that around if that's true

30:22 Then is it the case that perhaps some environments, perhaps if you've got, say,

30:27 a multiple million dollar, not dollar,

30:30 multiple million line of code monolith that somebody comes in and it's just a huge footprint surface area to understand that we actually have environments that make it harder to have 10xers because you can't see the solution right away.

30:46 Brad: Okay, so I

30:47 Scott: You see what I'm saying?

30:48 Brad: want to pull on that thread a little bit because I actually think you're on to something.

30:51 I think that you're, I think that you're, I'm going to go out and say one of the attributes of a 10xer is even with the most complex systems,

31:02 they are able to keep almost all of it in their head.

31:08 Like

31:09 Scott: That's

31:09 Brad: they, they, they really do understand the full breadth of the, of the platform.

31:15 And, and when they first show up, you can't, you can't stop them.

31:22 But going and figuring out the whole breadth of the platform,

31:25 right?

31:25 Like they, they, they, they, it will just be part of their own personal onboarding to a code base is they will just like, they will, they will let go digest the whole thing.

31:36 Scott: Right, so...

31:38 To the extent that we can make that easier,

31:40 we

31:40 Brad: Yeah.

31:41 Scott: can increase the probability that there are 10Xers. Well,

31:44 this gets another question. I was going to say we increase the probability that there are 10Xers in our midst.

31:50 And so that would imply something like a 1Xer, a 2Xer, a 3Xer all the way up to a 10Xer. And maybe someone who's a 4Xer, can you change where you are on this scale?

32:00 Brad: Well,

32:00 Scott: Does

32:01 Brad: that's what

32:01 Scott: it

32:01 Brad: I

32:01 Scott: vary?

32:01 Brad: would that's what I think would be a really interesting way to pivot this conversation.

32:05 conversation okay so we got some of our listeners are listening and they're developers they're young in their career they're they're they're listening to us old CTO types and and they they're listening to this because they want to know like what can I learn from these two jokers right and they might be asking themselves okay that sounds like somebody I want to be I want to be a 10xer what do I do what do I how do I become a 10xer what do I need to do to become a 10xer

32:31 Scott: understand the whole I would say without a doubt what you were just saying under understand the whole system and in fact for any of those actually anybody I'll offer a tip of advice there's a framework out there called the C4 model I think it's called C4 model.org it's it's it's not rocket science okay I'm not going to say anything that's genius here it's just a framework for modeling a system you

32:57 that's it just you know and from like there's four levels i can't remember all of them the the lowest level is code i think it goes like code component container concept or something like that did i get them right

33:09 Brad: So close top one

33:11 Scott: what

33:11 Brad: is system.

33:11 Scott: were they oh

33:12 Brad: You got it code code component to container to system.

33:16 Scott: Oh, concept would have been better than it would have been four C's, right?

33:18 I thought it was the four C system.

33:20 Brad: I don't know why.

33:21 It says C4.

33:22 I don't know why it's not.

33:25 Scott: So it's just, you know, trying to understand a system can get a little noisy because at one minute you're like looking at a method and the next minute you're

33:32 Brad: trying Yeah,

33:32 Scott: to understand how does the service talk to the other service. And it's just a framework for how to kind of create those four levels and draw them in pictures.

33:39 And so it's just a tool, kind of a simple tool for understanding a system. And I learned it from a actually a guy we should have on this show, a guy named Jagun Rimes.

33:46 He was a VP of engineering type that I worked with a few companies ago.

33:50 um he lives in Florida and uh he taught we we Jagun and I hit it off and I'll tell you amongst the reasons he taught me about the C4 thing but here's why we hit it off here's here's how I knew I was had a developer crush on Jagun before I ever met him

34:07 I get this resume comes across my we're looking to hire somebody I get this resume comes across my desk and on his resume it says all sorts of stuff but one of the things that said just one little bullet point in there was like he improved his team's estimation accuracy from x to y and I was like oh

34:26 This is the only other person I've ever met in my entire career whose estimation accuracy is important and it's so important that he put it on his resume.

34:33 I want to hire that guy.

34:35 Brad: I love it.

34:36 So how do you become a 10Xer? So one,

34:38 like

34:39 Scott: You learn the systems.

34:40 Brad: learn the systems,

34:41 right?

34:42 What do we think about learned computer science fundamentals?

34:46 And I don't necessarily mean that with a formal program,

34:49 but like you can you can pick it up, you know.

34:52 Scott: For sure, that's important.

34:53 I would think learn good architecture and technical design fundamentals would be sort of more important because there's such abstraction now.

35:04 So let's compare two scenarios.

35:06 One person is using Ruby, like a very abstract language from how the computer works.

35:11 And they really know nothing about how the computer works, but they can design really well.

35:14 Right.

35:15 The other person is using C,

35:17 not even C++. They're using C.

35:18 Right. So they understand how the computer works really, really well, but their design is terrible.

35:23 Right.

35:23 I think I'd rather have the first than the second.

35:26 I think the first person

35:27 Brad: I

35:27 Scott: will get

35:27 Brad: agree,

35:28 Scott: but more we'll get more done.

35:30 be more effective.

35:30 Brad: Yeah,

35:31 but the reason I the reason I say computer science fundamentals is I'm not I don't mean like go learn C,

35:35 go learn a language.

35:36 I don't mean that. I mean, like,

35:39 you know, you got to understand what's going on underneath in the computer.

35:43 Right.

35:44 Like, how does memory work?

35:45 How does how does the stack frame work versus RAM?

35:49 Like.

35:50 if you're like if you don't if you're not comfortable in a debugger and you don't understand that when you open up the debugger and you set a breakpoint and you're looking at a stack frame you know and what the difference between like you know stack frame you know uh scoped variables are versus memory that you've allocated as an object that's sitting in the heap like if you don't if that stuff's not fluid to you

36:12 You've got to get those fundamentals or you're ever going to be a 10xer

36:15 Scott: Hmm

36:15 Brad: and and that doesn't matter what language you're using whether using Java JavaScript C C++ Ruby they're all the same that you need you need that you need to understand that stuff.

36:26 Scott: Let's ask this you said something the debugger get

36:29 Brad: Debugger every 10 extra I know uses a freaking debugger.

36:33 Scott: did the kids use debuggers anymore?

36:35 Brad: Some of them do.

36:35 Scott: Some of them do I love

36:37 Brad: The

36:37 Scott: that

36:37 Brad: 10

36:37 Scott: I

36:37 Brad: extras do.

36:38 Scott: love the debugger

36:39 Brad: Oh my God, I was just so excited. I just got my new, my new laptops.

36:43 I've set up my new laptop and I was like setting up, you know, proper React native app building and,

36:49 you know, ran the ran the Android simulator on this.

36:53 on this new machine and the first thing that happened was I was like popped up and I was like able to set a break point in the debugger and I was just like I just had this moment of this just like washed with this warm glow of joy of seeing the debugger pop up and letting me set a break point

37:10 Scott: I don't know how to program without the debugger.

37:12 I mean, I do,

37:13 but like to me, like it's like I can't.

37:17 come you get to go inside you get to go inside the code you get to walk it's like john malcovich's head you get to go inside it

37:24 Brad: Yeah, exactly.

37:25 And, you know, again,

37:27 like, you know, another another,

37:29 you know, I just thought of another attribute of 10 extra that we didn't mention.

37:33 They're never satisfied with something working,

37:37 but they don't understand why it's working.

37:38 Scott: yes yes

37:40 Brad: They're never satisfied with a, you know.

37:43 Works on my machine or could not repro.

37:48 Scott: I will say there's two parts of that.

37:50 One's a little bit of an Achilles heel.

37:51 So one part of it goes back to what we were talking about,

37:55 understanding the system,

37:56 which is like when there's part of a system they don't understand,

37:59 they'll just intuitively or not intuitively,

38:01 but naturally take some time to go figure it out.

38:04 I didn't really know what was happening over there.

38:06 So I just spent the afternoon kind of trying to figure out what was going on over there. There's

38:11 Brad: Did another. you tell us that story?

38:12 Did you tell us that story a couple episodes ago about.

38:14 about like the guy that was like debugging something he comes back and he's like how the how the hell did this even work at all you know i had to find out i had to get to the bottom of how this even worked at all

38:26 Scott: He wrote a document that he shared around that how the F does such an, I can't remember what the system name was called,

38:32 how the F does such and such work.

38:36 That's right. Yeah,

38:37 that's part of it. Now there's a little bit of an Achilles heel there.

38:41 Sometimes, not all the time, sometimes a 10XR can head down that I want to understand it rabbit hole.

38:48 But I would say less, when I say that out loud, I think to myself, but actually kind of less so than your sort of mid-junior engineer who gets lost there.

38:58 Right.

38:59 Brad: Yeah.

39:00 And that's partly because I think the reason that the 10Xer goes down that rabbit hole but never gets lost down there is because that point that you made that they just are good at understanding the big picture of systems.

39:14 And so they don't ever get stuck down like a maze because they're kind of always able to like pull their head up and look at the whole forest,

39:23 Scott: Well,

39:23 Brad: right?

39:24 Scott: that actually you just brought something up.

39:25 Something very interesting that an attribute I've seen is that they can zoom up and down really fluidly, right?

39:32 They can be talking to you about business stuff in one sentence and the next second they're saying, but I think we should form the method like that. I think we should actually write it like this and you're just like,

39:42 whoa,

39:43 you have a whole thing in your head.

39:47 You're

39:47 Brad: Yep.

39:48 Scott: in the debugger right now. You're in the matrix just like totally zooming around.

39:52 Brad: Yep.

39:52 Scott: Okay,

39:53 so yeah, I think you learn the debugger, you learn how to understand a system,

39:57 you learn fundamentals,

39:58 you learn the...

39:59 as a design look if you don't love it maybe you can't become a 10x or and that might be okay

40:05 Brad: I think if you don't love if you don't if you're not in love with it,

40:08 then I think it's going to be really, really hard because,

40:11 you know, it's a lot like.

40:13 like i like i'm i am confident lebron james loves basketball

40:17 Scott: Yeah.

40:17 Brad: loves it loves it loves it and that's why he is lebron james it's one of the many important things that makes him lebron

40:23 Scott: Yeah,

40:24 Brad: james yeah

40:24 Scott: that's right.

40:25 He loves it.

40:25 Brad: yeah

40:27 Scott: What else is there?

40:28 You got to learn how to work with other people. I talked about independence,

40:32 but you got to know how to work with other people.

40:34 Brad: 100

40:34 Scott: And I have a bias in this,

40:36 which is I just think pair programming is the best way.

40:39 Brad: I think that I agree with that.

40:41 I agree with that.

40:42 I think there's so much value that comes out of that.

40:45 And I 100% agree that like all the 10Xers I know are they're great alone and they're also great together.

40:53 And they're really great when they're paired with another 10Xer.

40:57 That's when sparks fly in

40:59 Scott: Yeah, it's probably true.

41:00 Brad: a positive way.

41:01 Scott: It's probably true.

41:02 I want to get a room full of these people.

41:04 Brad: Yeah,

41:04 we they're.

41:05 Scott: should have a 10th

41:05 Brad: I mean, well,

41:06 10 that but

41:06 Scott: conference

41:07 Brad: that's that's

41:07 Scott: they

41:07 Brad: a nice point,

41:08 right? The 10Xers, they attract each other.

41:10 Scott: do for sure oh

41:12 Brad: And I think 10Xers are attracted to problems that are interesting to solve.

41:17 Scott: i just thought of another attribute of a 10xer

41:19 Brad: Yeah,

41:20 tell me.

41:21 Scott: to some degree they're very independent minded and to some degree they march a little bit to their own drummer but i'm thinking of the pool of like as we've been having this conversation there's like six people in my head there's like a set of six people in my head that i'm like just continuously thinking about these people and they're all it's it's it's not it's it's not hard to get them to do things they don't want to do but it is a little bit of wrangling cats

41:45 Brad: Yeah, that's fair.

41:47 You're saying they're the first ones to have gotten those split keyboards,

41:52 for example. Not all of them, but one of the 10Xers had the monitor turned to the side before anyone else did.

42:04 A portrait monitor before anyone else did.

42:08 Scott: You know what?

42:09 of all of the 10xers I can think of, the group of six I'm thinking of, I don't think any of them had a split keyboard.

42:16 But I do think that they all really knew their tools well.

42:22 Whatever their editor or IDE was that they were using,

42:25 they really knew it.

42:27 And I'm thinking of this group now,

42:29 like, you know, I know of a guy,

42:32 what's a...

42:34 IntelliJ?

42:36 Brad: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

42:37 Scott: I'm not sure.

42:38 Brad: Yeah,

42:38 Scott: I think

42:38 Brad: that's one of them.

42:39 Scott: there was an IntelliJ guy,

42:40 an Emacs guy,

42:41 a Vim guy.

42:42 They're all different.

42:43 A VS Code guy.

42:44 Brad: Yeah, the Vim masters,

42:46 the 10xers that were in Vim.

42:48 Scott: Well,

42:49 they're playing above the rim.

42:51 Brad: They're playing above the rim.

42:53 Scott: But they all knew it. They all knew how to use their tools really well. They saw their tools as an advantage.

42:59 Um,

42:59 I

42:59 Brad: Yeah.

43:00 Scott: don't know about the keyboard part of it, but like they weren't they weren't doing the keyboard for show they were doing they're using their tools to make themselves more productive.

43:09 Brad: Yeah.

43:09 Scott: Maybe that's a question you ask when we have a room of 100 people we're trying to figure out who the 10Xer is. We talk to them about their tools.

43:16 Brad: Well,

43:17 by the way, that's one of the reasons why I feel like that question I've been asking a lot more lately in interviews about talk to me about generative AI.

43:24 Right.

43:25 Tell me tell me what you think about generative AI.

43:28 And I am certain that the 10Xers are not religious about.

43:33 gen x in a generation ai generated ai they're they're like they're like oh you know they immediately have a conversation about it and they see the places that it's a useful tool and they see the places that it has weaknesses and they're comfortable talking about that yeah

43:48 Scott: Yeah.

43:50 Yeah.

43:51 Because, yeah, totally,

43:53 totally, totally.

43:54 Well,

43:55 Brad,

43:55 we can squeeze the 10X or rock forever.

43:58 This has been a fun conversation.

44:01 Brad: I feel like we've really got somewhere on this. Like this, this feels like it's fun to hear your interpretation of it. I can totally picture you in your mind's eye,

44:09 like remembering all the 10 Xers you've worked with, you know, and like I was doing the same thing, you know, I had their faces kind of floating by in my mind and I was like, Oh yeah, let me think about how did, how did they behave?

44:19 How did, what made them different?

44:20 You know?

44:21 And so it's kind of, it's one of those things that, you know, when you see it and it's amazing when you get to work with them.

44:27 Scott: That's right.

44:27 I'm sure that's how people feel about getting to play with LeBron.

44:30 Brad: There you go.

44:31 All right.

44:32 Scott: Well, with that, we're out until next

44:33 Brad: Well,

44:33 Scott: week.

44:34 Brad: what do we say?

44:35 Scott: Smash rate and subscribe.

44:36 Leave a review.

44:37 Leave a great comment.

44:38 Brad: Yeah.

44:39 Leave 10X's comments.

44:40 Scott: Love it.

44:41 All right. Talk to you soon.

44:42 Brad: This episode of How Many CTOs Does It Take podcast was edited by Safran Epigalb. Our theme song was AI generated by Brad.

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