When 10x is 0x

There’s no such thing as a 10x engineer spending time on something that never ends up delivering business value. If something doesn’t deliver business value, it’s 0x.

- Erik Bernhardsson

Ah, the 10x Engineer™.

One of the most frustrating things I’ve witnessed in my career is smart developers working on stuff that just doesn’t matter.

Blistering progress toward a goal that does the business no good, is not progress at all. In fact, when you consider the opportunity cost, it’s negative value.

Perhaps more important than raw technical ability is a finely-tuned intuition about where to aim that talent.