The only 10x engineer pic.twitter.com/hSOhP1gvzL
— Helen 侯-Sandí (@helenhousandi) July 13, 2019
ADDED: A "10x Engineer" is — per svd:
A concept sometimes used in Silicon Valley to describe an engineer that is 10x more productive than an average engineer although the 10x metric is figurative. Sometimes referred to as "Ninjas", these engineers are highly sought after by all tech companies.
Jim: You gave me 100 resumes but none of these guys are 10x engineers. Why hire a few of these guys to slow us down when a 10x engineer is so much more productive?
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96 comments:
It's all in the wrist. This may be a display of why Althouse picked Meade.
Good cinematography.
Dude Perfect
The only engineering I'm seeing is the video editing. The 10x is likely the multiplier for number of takes versus complexity of moving objects. Love the Harden jersey!
Repetitive!
Real engineers see the need to prevent these things from happening in the first place.
Why is that inspiring? I'm serious, very curious about why you or anyone else thinks so.
If these people are "engineers," where are the engines?
Inspiring?
Same tricks as any Kung fu movie. meh
They are right to mock the concept of a 10x engineer.
Basically a 10x engineer is Bradly Cooper in Limitless.
It's Groundhog Day!
Nice tits. My experience is that the best women are average males in STEM.
Average males get that way by not being really interested in the job.
Cute.
But why is she cutting a melon at the coffee table when she has a kitchen counter?
Classic 10x engineer behavior.
That's a great video. I have always been the guy who tries to throw paper in the trash with a trick-shot. This chick is on another level.
"Inspiring!"
Sure, women find social engineering that consists of being nice to other people inspiring.
Men, by contrast, tend to find technical solutions devised by actual 10x engineers that help millions of people more inspiring.
Question: what is the ratio of male to female 10x engineers?
Asking for Larry Summers.
I can always make the waste basket from across the room only when I throw with my left hand. Odd since I'm right-handed.
Possibly years of practice exiting men's room doors (open door with towel, toss towel into waste basket next to sink).
Not seeing an engineer relevance, in the video.
I find myself, increasingly over time, frustrated by things in the physical world that don’t fall immediately into place as I hoped or thought they would or, more to the point, should.
Are my abilities degrading over time or with age, or have my perceptions about how things “should” work changing instead?
This video, although trite and done before, makes me wonder whether in an increasingly digital world there’s a larger change in the perception of how easy it should be to go through life in all its aspects.
And what that evolving perception might do to the human drive needed to accomplish things both great and small.
"The 10X Engineer" is a management fantasy -- some trick that will get them something for nothing. "If we put all the engineers in an open office, that will increase productivity by fifty percent!" "Work smarter, not harder." "Dilbert" has probably already addressed this specific delusion.
I do not understand the association between a "10x engineer" and a demo of film effects suitable for TV commercials or fantasy hero films.
Then there are the Captain Zeroes. No matter how much work others put in, Captain zero is like multiplying that by zero.
Inspiring? Engineering? What I see is a lady who could be an NBA point guard with her ability to shoot without looking.
Fernandistein said...
I do not understand the association between a "10x engineer" and a demo of film effects suitable for TV commercials or fantasy hero films.
LOL. The answer is in your question.
So a 10x engineer knows how to put trash in receptacles and hang laundry out to dry.
Should I call her “Mom”?
It's a little reminiscent of Brodie Smith and his trick shot frisbee videos.
I didn’t realize I was being so difficult.
The title just meant it’s a cool fantasy of lightweight last- minute rescues.
Where is your spirit of fun this morning?!
This video proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that America is still lightyears ahead of every other country on the planet. Imitation is the sincerest form of indoctrination. Roll Kubrick:
The Duality of Man, it's a Jungian thing
Chinese women have amazing skills. Unicycle Bowl Flipper
Blogger rhhardin said...Nice tits.
Her eyes are a little too far apart for my taste, but perhaps that gives her better depth perception required to pull off this cunning array of stunts.
She has eyes?
YES! there's NO DOUBT! that IF WE LIVED IN A DREAM WORLD, clean living would be effortless!!
However, In OUR World; you're going to miss that shot, and go back and clean up....
OR, as this video is teaching us:
Make a half assed effort, and then just walk away without looking back; it Probably went in
Goldfish! It’s what for dinner!
10X Enginner - have not heard of that term before. But it sounds like it is a modern adaptation of the old IBM "Chief Programmer Team" concept proposed by Harlan Mills about 50 years ago. Was written about in a well-known book about programming, "The Mythical Man-Month."
The title just meant it’s a cool fantasy of lightweight last- minute rescues.
It looked a TV commercials without a product, and with no connection to 10x engineers unless, perhaps, you're referring to the people who created the special effects.
You need a few of the "10x" and a bunch of the "1x-2x". The 10xers are the ones who make the significant advances; the 1x-2xers are needed for the "grunt" work.
How did they make that video? Wonderful.
She's the Japanese Elizabeth Holmes! A hot 10x female engineer, with no Becky vibes. I see a billion dollar valuation just based on this video. What's the name of her start-up? Henry Kissinger and I want in on the first round of venture capital.
I see a billion dollar valuation just based on this video. What's the name of her start-up?
But, how could we blackmail her? is she interested in 14 year olds? If not, she's of no use to us
Steve Yegge, who worked at Google and Amazon, on
Done and Get things Smart
People he worked with.
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/done-and-gets-things-smart.html
For your startup (or, applying the recursion, for your new project at your current company), you don't want someone who's "smart". You're not looking for "eager to learn", "picks things up quickly", "proven track record of ramping up fast".
No! Screw that. You want someone who's superhumanly godlike. Someone who can teach you a bunch of stuff. Someone you admire and wish you could emulate, not someone who you think will admire and emulate you.
You want someone who, when you give them a project to research, will come in on Monday and say: "I'm Done, and by the way I improved the existing infrastructure while I was at it."
Someone who always seems to be finishing stuff so fast it makes your head spin. That's what my Done clause means. It means they're frigging done all the time.
I met my first Done, and Gets Things Smart engineers back at Geoworks. This was looong before I had any sort of a clue that I suck as an engineer, but these folks (Andrew Wilson and Chris Thomas, if you really must know) were weird. They never seemed to be working that hard, but they were not only 10x as productive as their peers, they also managed technical feats that were quite frankly too scary for anyone else. They could (as just one trait) dive in and learn new languages and make fixes to tools that the rest of us assumed were, I dunno, stuff you'd normally pay a vendor to fix. They dove into the hairiest depths of every code base they encountered and didn't just add features and make fixes; they waved some sort of magic wand and improved the system while they were in there: they would Get Things Smart. Make the systems smarter, that is. Sort of like getting your act together, but they'd do it for your code.
I've met many more such engineers along the way. They're out there. They're better than you. They were better twenty years ago than I am today or ever will be. Maybe it's natural ability. Maybe it's luck in education or upbringing. Maybe they have a secret recipe for improving rapidly and learning utter fearlessness. I don't know. But I've met 'em, and they aren't "smart". They're abso-flutely fugging brilliant.
You can't interview these people. For starters, they're not interested; these are the people that companies hold on to as long as humanly or companyly possible. The kinds of people that companies file lawsuits over when they're recruited away.
Your commenters are so weird sometimes.
"Why hire a few of these guys to slow us down when a 10x engineer is so much more productive?"
Because engineers are interchangeable parts to the Human Resources Department.
“I can always make the waste basket from across the room only when I throw with my left hand. Odd since I'm right-handed.”
Barbara Feldon approves.
“Was written about in a well-known book about programming, "The Mythical Man-Month."”
Found it last winter when I was finally putting my office back together and integrating technical and legal books collected over the last four decades. Would not be the least surprised if that book was in the back of Scott Adams’ mind a lot of time when writing Dilbert. The basic idea is this, that if it takes one programmer none months to complete a programming project, it should take nine programmers one month to do it if they work together. That sort of thinking is akin to believing that if one woman can create a child in nine months, nine women can create one in one month, sharing the work. The reality is that throwing a lot of programmers at a late project usually just makes it later.
The book though that I found more useful from that era is Yourden’s “Structured Design”. Not completely sure where my copy came from. I suspect that it might have been a copy from the Census Bureau library, inadvertently included in my stuff when I left their employment almost exactly 40 years ago now. Much of what was cutting edge back then in that book, has long been mainstream in structured and object oriented programming.
Jeff and Sanjay, Google engineers who have their own employee classification
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-friendship-that-made-google-huge
In 1966, researchers at the System Development Corporation discovered that the best programmers were more than ten times as effective as the worst. The existence of the so-called “10x programmer” has been controversial ever since. The idea venerates the individual, when software projects are often vast and collective. In programming, few achievements exist in isolation. Even so—and perhaps ironically—many coders see the work done by Jeff and Sanjay, together, as proof that the 10x programmer exists.
Today, Google’s engineers exist in a Great Chain of Being that begins at Level 1. At the bottom are the I.T. support staff. Level 2s are fresh out of college; Level 3s often have master’s degrees. Getting to Level 4 takes several years, or a Ph.D. Most progression stops at Level 5. Level 6 engineers—the top ten per cent—are so capable that they could be said to be the reason a project succeeds; Level 7s are Level 6s with a long track record. Principal Engineers, the Level 8s, are associated with a major product or piece of infrastructure. Distinguished Engineers, the Level 9s, are spoken of with reverence. To become a Google Fellow, a Level 10, is to win an honor that will follow you for life. Google Fellows are usually the world’s leading experts in their fields. Jeff and Sanjay are Google Senior Fellows—the company’s first and only Level 11s.
Is the soundtrack supposed to be relevant somehow? Am I supposed to be following the words as well as figure out what the video is saying?
That always confuses me.
Bruce Hayden said...: The book though that I found more useful from that era is Yourden’s “Structured Design”.
Yes, I remember that one well. Also, Gerald Weinberg's "The Psychology of Computer Programming."
I had a bookshelf at work of many great books on programming, technology, and management that I collected over 40 years. Some I bought, some were given to me at various seminars and classes I attended. When I retired in 2016 I put them all on a table in my office and sent an e-mail out to all my co-workers to come take what they wanted. Most disappeared in a couple of days.
Scott Adams and some "famous" caller are doing 10x engineer mutual congratulations today. The show drones on and on with status talk. Weird.
Strongly-typed languages are for weak minds.
Kinda liked it but thought it went on way too long. 4-6 gags would have been sufficient.
John Henry
Not seeing much engineering there but I do see a potential 10x NBA player.
How many takes and how much CG went into this? Some one spent a great deal of time editing.
strongly typed languages are for weak minds
LOL. How to win friends and influence people.
(Long Slack discussion at work two weeks ago about whether Typescript was part of our core stack or just an annoyance.)
@Unknown -- Thanks for the article. Well worth the read.
Someone who always seems to be finishing stuff so fast it makes your head spin. That's what my Done clause means. It means they're frigging done all the time.
In other words, the guys who coded the 737 Max MCAS system
In 1966, researchers at the System Development Corporation discovered that the best programmers were more than ten times as effective as the worst.
I saw a far bigger difference than that when we had a contract with some utility company back east (Boston?), whose employees seemed to consist solely of affirmative-action women who would break things and make things worse: they had a negative impact. What's the multiplier for that?
Google’s engineers
Dunno what to think about them; most google software is pretty poor, or getting close to mediocre, like blogger.com, but some of it is rather amazing. One thing I keep in mind about google is, if you're making money writing crappy software, why not just continue to do so? I bet they use their better people on optimizing their advertising revenue.
To become a Google Fellow, a Level 10, is to win an honor that will follow you for life. Google Fellows are usually the world’s leading experts in their fields. Jeff and Sanjay are Google Senior Fellows—the company’s first and only Level 11s.
But but but that’s merit and intelligence and that’s bad!
Michael K: In other words, the guys who coded the 737 Max MCAS system.
After reading the comments, it seems that Boeing could use some Google engineers.
> Dunno what to think about them; most google software is pretty poor, or getting close to mediocre, like blogger.com,
What would it take for you to make your own Google Maps?
- 100s of cars with 360 deg camera array collecting image data
- distributed storage for routes, traffic, ads, what is at rest stops
- computer power to find best route and update in real time based on traffic
- a web app and mobile app
- storage to track your movement
They might not care about consumer software beyond collecting data with it (android)...
But the best software (now AI) works so well you don't notice it
> In other words, the guys who coded the 737 Max MCAS system
"and smart"
Software is more like painting than an industrial process.
Best artists don't go to cubicles for a slot at the bigco
Boeing engineers blame cheap Indian software for 737 Max problems
https://theprint.in/world/boeing-engineers-blame-cheap-indian-software-for-737-max-problems/256999
left-handed-ers usually more creative.
more rare in females?
big list of left-handed celebs (aside from their politics)
What would it take for you to make your own Google Maps?
Actually...been there, done that: it's called GIS. We had everything - and more - except the "roadside view" (good image stitching didn't exist back then, but it's pre-google). And google "swiped" one of my mapping algorithms (I thought it was pretty a obvious thing, but ACM used its output as a cover image for their SIGGRAPH proceedings).
The really, and perhaps only, impressive thing about google is their fast access to a lot of data, IOW:
- 100s of cars with 360 deg camera array collecting image data
- distributed storage for routes, traffic, ads, what is at rest stops
...etc
That's the good stuff. And the self-driving car, but IIRC others are doing a better job on that...?
blogger, gmail, android sometimes make me think google went out of their way to be perverse rather than just lazy and uncaring as long as the money flows. And don't forget evil.
The annoying thing (to me) about the juxtaposition is that the (cute) video shows only non-10x activities. There are no 10x litter collectors or 10x cleaning people, just like there are no 10x farmers or 10x teachers. Maybe 1.5x or 2x, but not 10x. Putting a 10x engineer reference with the video distracts and detracts.
I've worked in SW since 1999. Two people were hired at the same time, me an Jeff. While I had a successful career, it was not as an engineer. Jeff on the other hand was a prodigy at engineering. Our company had 100 or so programmers, but there as only one Jeff. We all knew it. He was the guy who MADE one of our product lines. He as not the manager, the lead, or any of that stuff. He was the guy who made it sing.
Now for my part, I eventually bubbled up in another area, but not until after I labored trying to prove myself as an engineer. I could code, but I could not develop. Once I found where I was 10x (ok, more like 2x, but still better than my peers), my career took off. In every skill set there are the people who are 3-4 standard deviations above the norm. I have learned that you should find that one person and let them shine. If you want to keep them, pay then enough, but more importantly let them play at being what they are good at, because for them it is like playing. Don't have them make what you want, have them make what they want and sell it. You'll do better.
Love the video. Like James Bond, Sherlock Holmes or any other movie hero that is always that much better than everyone else.
The top 10% make 90% of the brilliant insights and top-quality work. Its true in every field.
But you need the other 90% to make the organization go and finish the job.
left-handed-ers usually more creative.
Lots of good left handed surgeons. Also a pleasure to work with as they stand on the patient's left and the right handed (me ) stands on the patients right. I was told I was left handed as a small child but my father did not want me to be so, and I was required to use my right hand. I may be ambidextrous.
After reading the comments, it seems that Boeing could use some Google engineers.
In reading a lengthy article about the MCAS thing, I noticed lots of comments attributed to "Former Boeing engineers." I just wondered why "Former?"
H1B visas ?
When i worked with Engineers, i was always surprised at how many didn't want to do engineering. They wanted to move into management or find some job where they would be the Engineering Expert/Consultant working with Non-engineers. For example, working in the Finance Department and reviewing the due dates and budgets submitted by the Engineering Department. Or being the Engineering liaison with the Customers.
My only experience with SW Engineers came when Internal Audit called my boss and thought the SW Eng. Department had a "Ghost employee". SW engineer "Joe" had a desk, but no one ever saw the guy. Was there fraud? So, I talked to Department Head, and its seems that "Joe" was their best programmer, but he demanded the unusual work hours of 9 PM to 5 AM. I checked with security, and the guy was actually keeping those hours! And he was probably sleeping most of the time. But he got his work done and was the best. So, they put up with it.
Bill Murray near the end of Groundhog Day is quite the 10x sorta guy, but he had lotsa time to get that way.
Hey now, Helen has gotten more than 10 X 15 minutes of fame, so good for her. Best SW Engineer I worked with was dyslexic and worked in automation. Much of his work was compiled at the assembler level. He was our "smoke jumper", happy to fly around the world straightening out manufacturing problems.
Barbara Feldon... Hot Hot Hot! Loved Get Smart on so many levels.
Seeing Red said...
To become a Google Fellow, a Level 10, is to win an honor that will follow you for life. Google Fellows are usually the world’s leading experts in their fields. Jeff and Sanjay are Google Senior Fellows—the company’s first and only Level 11s.
But but but that’s merit and intelligence and that’s bad!
**************
Does Sanjay know he's enjoying White Privilege?
Always loved the "Chinese Acrobats" on Ed Sullivan too.
"If you want to keep them, pay then enough, but more importantly let them play at being what they are good at, because for them it is like playing."
Just so long as you pay them EXACTLY the same amount as the worst woman engineer on the team.
PAY EQUALITY!!!!!!
(Apparently you can stiff the worst of the men.)
"The top 10% make 90% of the brilliant insights and top-quality work. Its true in every field."
I think this is actually the so-called 20-80 rule, but the way I observed it in my field, chemistry, was that the 20-80 rule really works like this:
20% are responsible for 80% of the real progress; but 4% are responsible for 64% of the real progress. And you can probably carry the iteration one step further, too. Tails of bell curves are real and they are small in area.
How many takes and how much CG went into this? Some one spent a great deal of time editing.
I've seen one on TBD channel that's better edited but not so elaborate. You really can't see any seams.
You are likely to have 1 100 x person, 2 10 x people, and 10000 1x"or worse people".
I thought the rule was the boss spends 80% of his time managing 20% of his people.
The 80/20 rule is seen in a lot of different places of achievement, both negative and positive achievements.
Where is your spirit of fun this morning?!
I almost put a comma between Dude and Perfect, but then I decided to just use their formal brand name. I was thinking, "Dude... that's perfectly like this...". And it is. However, Dude Perfect, who first became famous for dropping a basketball through a regulation hoop from an airplane, has since shown that it takes multiple takes to get that one 'perfect' take. The trick is to act excited each time, such that it seems genuine from the beginning. This woman just decided to be as casual as possible for each take, except for what looks like her first filmed gag which starts at 2:11. There, she adds some flare and for tricks that really aren't that spectacular.
As an engineer, I find deconstructing these things fun. I like to know how things worked. I don't know about the others, but I didn't intend to be a dullard, but then I do realize that when you know how the sausage is made; the magic is lost. When you put out clickbait that calls out engineers; you get them and this is who and what they really are. She's not.
"The 10xers are the ones who make the significant advances"
Sure, but "10x" is a bit misleading. The so-called 10x-ers can actually solve problems and see issues no one else can.
As some physicist (Hans Bethe?) once said, perhaps with respect to Feynman, there are the ordinary geniuses and then there are the magicians--with them, you don't know how they do it.
Nerd Perfect
I highly recommend marrying a 10x person.
Entertaining and delightful.
Often well compensated.
You could do worse.
Google has engineers who are treated with reverence?
Things I have learned about Google:
1. They fire people who study differences between men and women
2. They support Communists
3. They are self-appointed snoops
4. It is OK to sexually identify as 'a yellow-scaled wingless dragonkin'
Today I will add:
5. They worship humans
n 1966, researchers at the System Development Corporation discovered that the best programmers were more than ten times as effective as the worst.
Oh yeah, If that’s the criterion, I have worked with a couple of 10xers. I was a shitty programmer, but they kept me around because I had ideas that the good programmers were able to turn into salable products. Just don’t give me anything more complex than an awk script to code myself.
Amusing, I suppose, but pretty much everything she does is dexterity and timing, not engineering.
Also, it's about 3 or 4 times longer than it needs to be. Groundhog Day did it better.
I knew a 10Xer and he reached his conclusions instantly by no process one could follow. And went on without stopping. So, a bit like the video.
ten times as effective as the worst.
it's interesting that they're comparing The Best, not to the average; but, to the Worst.
I'd say that their 10X ratio is off, by AT LEAST 2 orders of magnitude (well, More than 1 order, anyway)
The worst programmers i worked with weren't incapable of coding;
we had those; but they were just useless.
The bad programmers code never compiled.
The worst programmers were bug generating machines.
I spent much of my time trying to decipher someone's code, to try to find out HOW they were making those bugs
10X engineers are laid off by 0.1X management on the advice 0.01X MBA consultants and told the bad news by 0.000001X HR bints.
Back when I was slinging code for The Man, some of the coding work was outsourced to India. Our South Asian colleagues were quite good, if a bit unimaginative. But it would have been more efficient to outsource management to India and leave the coding to us.
“But it would have been more efficient to outsource management to India and leave the coding to us.”
That SOUNDS good, but the first thing they would have done is outsource the coding. Just speaking from experience here.
> blogger, gmail, android sometimes make me think google went out of their way to be perverse rather than just lazy and uncaring as long as the money flows.
"data is the new oil".
the old model was selling "code", the new model of trillion dollar companies is profiling you.
the "apps" are just toys to get you to input your preferences and activities.
Google wants to own everyone data, they don't even bother to sell software.
> Google wants to own everyone data,
Funny the Internet has turned into the Panopticon, the greatest surveillance and control tool
witness the platforming and demonetization FaceBook/Google/Twitter have implemented to control information flow for culture and politics. They decide what is important and what is ignored.
Just wait till employers figure out what to do with all this monitoring data.
Aunty Trump, RNB:
Clearly you don't work in engineering, and especially not in software engineering.
10x is an underestimate.
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