How to Be a 10x Engineer
Can you pave a path to unconventional success?
I’m happy to present as a guest author in this newsletter.
He is a performance coach who helps people unlock the potential in their work through principles of spirituality.
He also writes The Rise, a Substack newsletter that equips you with actionable advice on improving your work in under 5 minutes each week.
We originally published this piece in his newsletter and now we decided to refine it further and share it with you.
Without further ado, here’s Zan for you.
10x Software Engineer: a software engineer who is exceptionally productive. Through writing genius code, they can solve problems 10 times better and faster than the average developer.
There are two groups of software engineers in the world.
The first group are 10x engineers.They somehow manage to get an outsized amount of work done to the highest level. The second group wants to be like the first.
People have written hundreds of blogs trying to explain how people can move from the second group to the first.
But they all fall short.
Here, I want to take a different approach.
Instead of focusing on practical tips and hacks, I want to focus on you. For those with an engineering mindset, it will seem unconventional. But if you want an outsized gain, you need to start thinking outside the box.
So I ask you to suspend your judgment, and invite you to at least consider what I have to say before making the choice for yourself.
And straight off the bat, the first thing I suggest you do is rid yourself of the notion of being a 10x engineer.
Now that your cup is empty, let’s dig in.
There is no conventional path to 10x
Let me start with two observations that you can easily verify for yourself.
No two 10x engineers are the same. In fact, they’re more likely to be wildly different.
10x engineers didn’t set out with a goal to be labeled as 10x engineers.
Taken together, these two observations suggest that how can I become a 10x engineer? is the wrong question to ask.
By asking that question, you’re asking for a set of instructions to reach a place someone has already discovered. A path. A track. But frankly, the beaten track will lead you nowhere because it’s been beaten to death.
There is no path to where you want to go.
The whole point of being a 10x engineer is to make your own way. And to do that, you need to start asking deeper questions.
So what’s the real question you should ask?
Well, underneath your question of how you can become a 10x engineer, is a desire. To be better, faster, more productive, more ingenious. But your desire comes from a place of fear, and implies that right now, you see yourself as insufficient in these things.
But now let’s flip these assumptions: for a moment, assume that a 10x engineer is the default state.
From this perspective, the better question to ask is:
What is my mind holding onto that’s stopping me from returning to that default state?
Now, instead of looking for external hacks and instructions, you are forced to look inside. You notice what baggage is holding you back, and realize that letting go of it is the only way to float up to the height of success.
Ask this question with sincerity, and see what comes up.
Those are the real things you need to work on to unlock the next level of performance.
You must get out of your own way
If you did the first step properly, you’ll realize that most of your real blockers are creations of your mind.
You put so much energy into maintaining these blockers because you want to protect yourself from failure.
But that also protects you from success.
With all this wasted energy, there’s not much left to do 10x engineering.
So in reality, there’s only one thing you must subtract from the equation of your work: yourself.
Put your ego aside. Put your assumptions aside. Put the voice in your head aside.
This step is not about trying to fix these things, or challenge them, or make them better. It’s about accepting them, yet not getting involved with them.
Let your ego do what it does, let the voice in your head say what it says. Just don’t get sucked into them.
Instead, divert your newly freed energy to focus on the problem you need to solve and stay with it.
You must stay with the problem you are trying to solve
Students are perplexed by the question because they focus on an answer when all their attention should remain on the question. "Stay with the question," I tell them. "Don't worry about the answer, just get the question right. Examine your assumptions." Soon enough the question itself has been destroyed and, along with it, many layers of delusion.
Jed McKenna
The answer lies in the question is definitely an overused and abused spiritual platitude - but my experience has shown it to be true.
Here, the question refers to the engineering problem you are working on.
For example, you might be tasked with writing code to meet a particular requirement. It’s easy to jump straight into writing some code and iteratively test it - and that’s okay sometimes. But for trickier challenges, you want to get under the question.
Where did it come from?
What is it trying to achieve?
Why does the question exist in the first place?
When you look closely at the question like this, you will start to see all the assumptions baked into it.
Your job is to pry open these assumptions, work your way deep into the question, and figure out the solution that’s actually needed from there.
Just to convince you this isn’t purely spiritual woo, what I’m saying is no different to steps 1 to 3 of Elon Musk’s 5-step engineering process:
Make the requirements less dumb.
Delete the part or process.
Simplify or optimize the design.
Accelerate cycle time.
Automate.
Most engineers will jump to the 4th step of iteration.
But steps 1 to 3 are all about staying with the question and breaking it apart to see what the best answer really is.
That comes from examining your assumptions (steps 1 and 2), and destroying the layers of delusion (step 3).
The 10x engineering happens at the level of the question.
My challenge to you
I sincerely hope you find this helpful.
It won’t be for everyone, and that’s okay.
The first two principles I shared are all about you and your mind. The third principle is more practical and tells you where to focus your mind. Together, they will plant the seed for outsized results in your work.
So my challenge to you this week is simple.
Start by asking yourself: what am I holding onto that’s stopping me from moving to 10x?
Happy coding.
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Sincerely,
Alberto
P.S. This post is part of a series of guest posts I’m hosting until the end of March. If you want to be featured on this newsletter please shoot me an email or reach out on Substack.
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Very good, I read it at the time, but today I enjoyed it again