Building 10xers in tech: overcoming IT skills shortages

The rate of technical modernisation across the past 18 months far exceeds previous years. But to maintain this pace, we need a skilled workforce that can help us effectively respond to new opportunities.

Every industry is feeling the pinch of rapid tech growth and closed borders, but the Australian tech industry is particularly suffering. Technicians are being stretched across departments, working multiple roles while waiting for fresh talent to join, or stuck on time-consuming tasks that simply ‘keep the lights on’, rather than tasks that help deliver innovation and competitive advantage.

To make matters worse, the skills needed to succeed in today’s work environment are rapidly changing. Today’s IT employee must be equipped to respond to the shifting business landscape, helping organisations adapt to hybrid work and adopt emerging technologies like edge AI, digital twins, hyperscale edge computing, IoT platforms and homomorphic encryption.

Sure, we’re likely to see growing gaps in some industries but this combination of factors also offers opportunities for organisations that tackle these challenges head on.

How can the 10xers concept help solve some of these challenges?

Turn challenge into opportunity by building from within — explore your 10xers concept

The concept of the ‘10x engineer’ (10xer) has become a fixture in Silicon Valley, stemming from the common observation that a rare engineer can achieve 10 times more than an average engineer. They have outsized skills, an abnormally positive attitude and lots of vision, balanced with enough humility to pivot when great advice comes along. Deep curiosity and enthusiasm are also part of their game-changing make-up.

Across the years, I’ve come to learn that while it’s not a perfect science, you can identify ‘10xer qualities’ during the recruitment process by testing for a range of highly developed technical skills and the experience that accompanies. They should have similar failures as you, made similar mistakes as you and traversed those errors and turned them into successes like you. Which means questioning, conversation and rapport will be a given.

What’s much harder to interview for but is also one of the most desirable and important traits of an excellent employee is empathy. Irrespective if they are a 10exr or a ‘1xer’, the very best employees have an inherently strong social quotient and emotional quotient, as well as the ability to read a room and lead large groups of people to achieve their objectives.

These individuals not only exist in IT but in a range of different roles across a company. They may be a brilliant salesperson, high-performing marketer or an invaluable office manager, among many other roles. They are constantly evolving and improving to deliver great outcomes for the business, and in doing so, they also make their teams work better.

With skilled labour in high demand, there is a clear sense of urgency to upskill, train and retain enough employees and experts to bridge the talent gap — particularly in the technology sector.

Beyond recruiting new staff, organisations wanting to thrive and remain competitive need to identify the right 10xer qualities in their midst and find ways to free them up from ineffective and inefficient processes. This will equip them to grow, and simultaneously improve other employees’ work around them.

Set your talent up for success

To enable your people to thrive, you can create an environment that supports the 10xer’s style and encourage more of your employees to adopt the traits you want in your workplace.

The ecosystem in which a 10xer’s work can have as much of an impact on their outputs as their own internal drivers. They’re looking to:

1. Work in ‘results only’ cultures — where outcomes not time worked are the focus.
2. Have space which allows them to work smart, on their own terms.
3. Dive deep on tasks, expecting multiple challenges to pop up as they move through.
4. Respond with technical skills and in a way that allows them to continuously test, iterate and learn.
5. Sustainably automate repetitive or time-consuming tasks to enable them to focus on the work that delivers the greatest value.
6. Surround themselves with other individuals who inspire them to do and be more.
7. Share new information as they go, helping those around them to also grow.

Ready your culture

You can try to hire in a 10xer; however, that can be a challenging and time-consuming task. A better option for many businesses is to identify enthusiastic, high performers within your existing team and invest in their growth. Organisations that invest in skills and talent from within will deliver more and improve their bottom line.

The economics also stack up. According to research from Josh Bersin and Whiteboard Advisors in the US, companies are paying upwards of 20–25% of a new hire’s salary in recruitment costs, including recruitment fees, advertising and recruiting technology expenses. A new hire also requires onboarding and has a potential turnover of two to three times higher than an internal recruit. By contrast, investing in the training and reskilling of internal employees is far more cost-effective and can deliver greater return to a business.

Creating workplaces that excite staff and celebrate trying, learning and succeeding can facilitate the growth of 10xer-type skills. It also incentivises new and existing team members to deliver their best work. Provide opportunities for staff to attend workshops where they can upskill; for example, offering a website UX designer to attend a workshop on designing website UX to boost user security.

By investing in your existing staff and encouraging a collective focus on the type of culture that helps 10xers succeed, you’re improving their skills, offering them greater earning potential and contributing to improved workplace engagement and employee wellbeing.

Ultimately, supporting 10xers is not just about the individual. It’s about evolving your whole team. It’s about bringing your team to the next level and everyone becoming more experienced than they were before. Australia already has a talented workforce, but given the ongoing talent crunch, it’s a matter of capitalising on it.

James Coxon is the Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of native AWS cloud management platform Stax. He has over 20 years’ technology leadership experience, largely focusing on business engagements, digital solutions and agile transformation.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Olivier Le Moal