> It's not that they write code faster. It's that they select a path to the solution that is a lot shorter.
I know a developer who likes portraying himself as a kind of 10x.
He does not code faster, better, or smarter. His talent is managing his supervisor's expectations. He massages management to revise goals and shave off requirements, he is able to leverage even the smallest bump on the project management road to remove requirements and justify delays, and in the process he is able to put together a MVP that meets a fraction of the initial requirements and in spite of barely working does meet his manager's acceptance bar.
In the end all that is left is the story where he single-handedly delivered a working product, he moves onward to greener pastures, and an unwitting team is left with the architectural problems, myriads of bugs, missing features, and the blame for stuff failing to work in production.
> I think you are just salty. Communication is really important and seems like that dev was really capable at it
I'm not sure you got the point. The whole point is that, exactly like OP stated, some of these self-described 10x developers do not code faster/better/stronger at all. They might even suck at it. However, they do excel at all the salesmanship required to descope critical features out of a project until all it's left is a fraction of the original project, and also excel at managing the expectations of all stakeholders so that the 1/10th of the project they deliver is passed off as the desired outcome.
Once they succeed at turning a production project that requires a team to write into what amounts to a proof of concept that's doable by a one-man team, they find themselves in a position where a person alone can put it together.
To put it differently, it's easy to run a whole marathon at 1/10th of the time when you succeed at moving the finishing line to 1/10th of the marathon's length. That requires skills, but they are soft skills and not hard skills, and you do not need to run faster than anyone else to do it.
I know a developer who likes portraying himself as a kind of 10x.
He does not code faster, better, or smarter. His talent is managing his supervisor's expectations. He massages management to revise goals and shave off requirements, he is able to leverage even the smallest bump on the project management road to remove requirements and justify delays, and in the process he is able to put together a MVP that meets a fraction of the initial requirements and in spite of barely working does meet his manager's acceptance bar.
In the end all that is left is the story where he single-handedly delivered a working product, he moves onward to greener pastures, and an unwitting team is left with the architectural problems, myriads of bugs, missing features, and the blame for stuff failing to work in production.