A Day in the Life of a Senior Leader

Chapter 21. Sometimes Your Job Is to Stay the Hell Out of the Way

I wrote a piece a long time ago about the wolf. It’s my personal take on the mythical 10× engineer, except that they aren’t a myth. They exist. I’ve seen them. Many of them.

The article was popular. With hindsight, I determined that two populations cared about the piece and one did not. The first group that cared was the “I want to be a wolf” crowd, and the next wanted to know the answer to “How do I create a culture that attracts wolves?”

“How do I become a wolf?”

Wolves don’t know they are wolves. They don’t care about the label or the unique conditions that surround them. Wolves are the result of the work. They don’t ask to be wolves; they are.

“How do I create a culture that attracts or encourages wolves?”

I have slightly helpful advice here. First, I’ve seen wolves in every type of company. Tiny, medium, and huge. Enterprise, consumer, ad tech, and pure services. Every single one had wolves in their engineering-friendly companies. That’s your job—building a culture conducive to engineering.¹ After that? Nothing. Don’t talk about 10× engineers at your all-hands. Build a safe, healthy, distraction-light, and drama-free environment where builders focus on building. That’s where engineers do their best work.

And the third important population. Wolves themselves did not read my piece. Yes, I shared the piece with the wolf I was thinking of, and he nodded and said, “Yup,” and returned to the project in front ...