How do you assess a 10x developer?
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These 5 criteria can help asses a developer or rather most ICs with lots of current + future potential.
Mindset: Growth mindset, Listening Skills and ability to take feedback. These can be tested by asking how they have dealt with new or adverse scenarios or posing hypothetical scenarios.
Skills: Obviously foundational skills are important. But also look for Analytical problem solving skills, 10x+ folks are usually first principle thinkers who ask a lot of questions. Look for curiosity.
Ability to Prioritize: Look for folks who are interested in understanding the value of outcomes they drive. This again can be probed using questions around impact their work drove, or even look for how they are referencing facts of objectivity in their answers.
Execute with Principles (Scalability, Security, Simplicity): Architectural questions usually yield a good side to this.
Cultural: Check for their ability or willingness to collaborate. Eventually any 10x developer would be coaching in some way shape or form, and their ability to collaborate, be someone who others find approachable is also important.
In my experience a 10x dev doesn’t exist.
If you are a dev you are a professional and as a professional your are applying good practices and tools to guarantee the fastest result as possible, if high quality and low total cost of ownership.
Solving sw things fast doesn’t mean that you are a 10x dev.
May be I haven’t understood the question.
The 10x developer is a person who can work in a team and get the best out of everyone.
One person can be 10x if he/she has substandard team-mates, but the true 10xer plays the role of a mentor, role-model in bringing up the overall quality of a team.
Are you looking for 10X developers, or trying to figure out what to do with one?
In my experience I've have worked with many developers that were a level above their peers, sometimes far so, but it was also very environment dependent. Changing the situation (e.g. promotion for the 10x, different project, different client base, new team members, etc) may negate the 10x's advantages and render them normal. And the changing landscape can magnify the skills of another developer and turn them into a 10x, until the next change comes.
I'm not a promoter of the 10x, and I've seen more than one organization damage itself trying to cater to those with the 10x tag.
It depends. What is your definition of a 10x developer?