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What can strong engineers do that weak engineers can't?

seangoedecke.com · 1,755 words · saved by 1 readers

Right now people are blowing up on Twitter about whether the USA needs to import top talent from other countries, and if that means that American home-grown engineering talent is weak. Last month, people were blowing up over a study that purported to show that ~9.5% of software engineers do effectively zero work, and are effectively defrauding the company. And for the last ten years, people have been talking and writing about the fabled “10x engineer”. What does it really mean to be a strong software engineer? In my experience, the real measure of talent is not the speed or volume of output, but the capability to do tasks that other engineers can’t. In other words, strong engineers can do things that weaker engineers just can’t, even with all the time in the world. Therefore, the strongest engineers are stronger than people think they are: not 10x as strong as the median engineer, or even 100x, but infinity-x on some problems. The weakest engineers are weaker than people think they are

Right now people are blowing up on Twitter about whether the USA needs to import top talent from other countries, and if that means that American home-grown engineering talent is weak. Last month, people were blowing up over a study that purported to show that ~9.5% of software engineers do effectively zero work, and are effectively defrauding the company. And for the last ten years, people have been talking and writing about the fabled “10x engineer”. What does it really mean to be a strong software engineer? Strong engineers In my experience, the real measure of talent is not the speed or vo

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