this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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Asklemmy
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I'll speak from my experience in engineering.
It is extremely difficult to find experts. There are just not that many people around who are both smart and knowledgeable enough to solve high end engineering problems. This is why the vast majority of complex problems are solved by very few people, with the rest existing to support them.
10x'ers are real. Except it's worse than that. The tip top can solve problems the median person will never be able to.
Second, like everything, expertise exists on a continuum. Since the best of the best are radically more talented than the median (who you could still even call experts) or even the 90th percentile, you want the top ones.
It's just very hard to tell them apart in an interview. You can try the standard interview questions, but that's not very discriminatory.
What on earth is your experience in engineering that you would have anything to do with 10x'ers, as you called them?
Also, I'm willing to bet the median expert will suffice for most problems.
Hah!
No. The median engineer cannot, say, design anything to do with a tokamak fusion reactor. Even the ones that work at places that build tokamaks. At least the hard stuff, that's why they're in supporting roles.
The people that do those types of things are very, very special.
As for 10x'ers. This is a standard term. It's used everywhere.
Easy proof that they exist is that lots of people are taking on multiple "full time" jobs. Like 4-5.
Those are at least 4x'ers. They're just pretending to be 1x'ers for the salary bump.
And of course, 10 x'ers don't get 10 times the salary. Double would be pushing it.
This is 100% true.
I work as an electrical and hydraulic engineer and i consider myself above average.
The people with the knowledge base above me are ridiculously intelligent and in a different playing field.
I love calling NFPA and giving them a code reference and they know it off the top of their head.