Comment by derek1800

Neither of these types align with my definition of a 10x engineer. From my experience, they are engineers that understand both product/business as well as the technical side such that they can drop requirements that add a very small amount of improvement and in turn it significantly reduces implementation cost/complexity. They have the ability to instantly visualize system design and architecture for any features/new items enabling to quickly make these realizations and move fast. At the end of the day the ROI is what matters and SDE resourcing/capacity is the most limited resource. I have seen 100 SDE week projects turned into 4 weeks from individuals with this skillset.