The 10x Engineer Myth That's Destroying Teams
Why the fastest coder in the room might be your biggest liability
I used to worship "10x engineers."
You know the type. They code faster than anyone else on the team. Ship features while others are still arguing about variable names. Write 500 lines of code before lunch and call it a warm-up.
For years, I thought these were the engineers who would make or break my companies. I was wrong. Dead wrong.
The Night Everything Broke
Three years ago, we hired Marcus (not his real name). His resume was flawless. Previous company called him "irreplaceable." Could debug production issues in minutes that stumped senior engineers for hours.
In his first month, Marcus built our entire notification system. Solo. Two weeks ahead of schedule.
I thought we'd found our secret weapon.
Then, six months later, we needed to make a simple change to the notification logic. Marcus had left for another company, and nobody—not a single person on our team—could understand what he'd built.
The "simple" change took three weeks and two external consultants to implement.
That's when I realized the brutal truth about 10x engineers: their code might work perfectly, but their approach can cripple entire teams.
The Real Problem With Speed Demons
Here's what I've learned after working with dozens of these "10x" engineers across multiple companies:
They optimize for the wrong metrics. While they're obsessing over elegant algorithms and impressive commit counts, they're missing the bigger picture. Speed without direction is just expensive chaos.
They build in isolation. The same traits that make them fast—working alone, avoiding meetings, trusting their own judgment—make them terrible collaborators. They create knowledge silos that become single points of failure.
They solve interesting problems, not important ones. Give a 10x engineer a choice between fixing a boring-but-critical user onboarding bug and architecting a beautiful new microservice, and they'll choose the microservice every time.
I've watched brilliant engineers spend weeks optimizing database queries for features that three users actually cared about, while completely ignoring the broken checkout flow that was costing us thousands in revenue.
What Actually Makes Engineers Valuable
The most valuable engineers I've worked with aren't the fastest coders. They're the ones who ask the right questions before they write any code at all:
- "Why are we building this?"
- "Who's going to use it?"
- "What happens if we don't ship this feature?"
- "How will we know if it's working?"
These engineers might take longer to ship their first version, but they rarely need to ship a second version. They build things that actually get used.
They write code that other humans can read, modify, and extend. They document their decisions. They share knowledge instead of hoarding it.
They understand that code is written once but maintained forever.
The Junior Engineer Who Saved Us Millions
Last year, we had a choice between two candidates for a crucial backend role.
Candidate A had 10 years of experience, could reverse a binary tree on a whiteboard in his sleep, and had built systems that handled millions of requests.
Candidate B was fresh out of a coding bootcamp, had never heard of most of the frameworks we used, and asked what seemed like basic questions during the technical interview.
We hired Candidate B.
Not because she was technically better—she wasn't. But because during the interview, she asked something Candidate A never did: "What problem is this system actually solving for users?"
Six months later, she identified a critical flaw in our payment processing logic that nobody else had caught. Not because she was smarter, but because she was the only one who had actually walked through the entire user journey from sign-up to checkout.
That fix prevented what could have been millions in lost transactions.
Rethinking What Makes Engineers Great
Speed is seductive. It feels productive. It looks impressive in sprint reviews.
But here's what I've learned: the best engineers aren't the ones who write code the fastest. They're the ones who write the right code the first time.
They spend hours talking to product managers, designers, and users before they write a single line. They ask dumb questions that reveal smart assumptions. They say "I don't know" without embarrassment and "let me think about this" without apology.
They optimize for outcomes, not output. They care more about user impact than code elegance. They build things that last.
The New Hiring Framework
I've completely changed how we evaluate engineering candidates. I don't care about their algorithm knowledge or how fast they can fizzbuzz.
Here's what I look for:
Product intuition. Can they explain why certain features matter more than others? Do they ask about user problems before jumping to technical solutions?
Communication skills. Can they explain complex concepts simply? Do they ask clarifying questions? Can they disagree respectfully and change their mind when presented with new information?
Collaboration instincts. Do they share knowledge naturally? Are they comfortable saying they don't know something? Do they make the team around them better?
Long-term thinking. Do they consider maintenance costs? Do they think about how their decisions will affect the team six months from now?
The engineering talent market is obsessed with technical prowess. But the companies that win are the ones that hire for judgment, communication, and collaboration.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Maybe you're reading this and thinking about that brilliant engineer on your team who ships incredible features but makes everyone else's life harder.
Or maybe you're recognizing yourself in the "10x engineer" description and feeling defensive.
Here's the thing: this isn't about being anti-talent or anti-speed. It's about being honest about what actually drives results.
I want engineers who care about building the right thing, not just building things right. I want people who make the whole team better, not just individual contributors who happen to work on a team.
The best engineers understand that software development is a team sport, not a solo performance.
If you're a fast coder, that's awesome. But if you're not also a thoughtful collaborator, you're probably creating more problems than you're solving.
And if you're a hiring manager still chasing 10x engineers, ask yourself: do you want someone who writes perfect code that nobody can maintain, or someone who writes good code that everyone can build on?
The choice is obvious. The implementation is hard.
But companies that figure this out will build better products, stronger teams, and more sustainable businesses.
The rest will keep cleaning up after their heroes.
What's your experience with "10x engineers"? Have you seen similar patterns in your teams? I'd love to hear your war stories.