This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by
Member-only story
Forget silver bullets. These are the gritty, real-world habits that separate code grinders from actual engineering monsters.
Every dev I know has chased the mythical “10x engineer” badge at some point. Spoiler: it’s not about typing faster or memorizing every LeetCode problem. The biggest upgrades don’t come from magical frameworks or AI sidekicks they come from boring, repeatable habits that compound over years.
And yes, I say that as someone who once lost a full weekend because my “clever one-liner” broke in prod at 3AM. (Pro tip: no one laughs at your one-liners when the dashboard is bleeding red.)
TLDR:
This isn’t a hype list about “learn Rust” or “master Kubernetes.” These are 12 unglamorous, often-overlooked habits that make you faster, calmer, and way more useful to a team than the average code slinger. If you stick to even half of them, you’ll feel like you unlocked cheat codes in your dev career.
1. Write code like future you is a sleep-deprived intern
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: 90% of “bad code” isn’t actually bad it’s just confusing. Future you, six months from now, will be the poor intern who has to figure out what the heck you meant when you wrote foo(bar, true, 17).
If your code reads like a puzzle, you’re not clever, you’re cruel. The real flex is writing code that explains itself without requiring a decoder ring.
I once came back to an API wrapper I’d written half a year earlier. The commit message was “quick fix for issue.” That’s it. The function was 40 lines of nested ternaries. Guess how long it took me to figure out what it did? Two hours. And I wrote it. Future me was ready to throw hands.
Quick habits that help:
- Use clear variable names (
userId>u). - Add one comment per function, not a novel.
- Write commit messages like journal entries (“fix null crash in login flow” beats “oops”).
Want to see what great, human-readable code looks like? Check out Go’s standard library. It’s not fancy just boring, clear, and safe for future-you.
So yeah, stop flexing with one-liners. Write for your future intern self because one day, that intern will be you at 2AM.
2. Debug like Sherlock, not like Scooby-Doo
A lot of devs “debug” the way Scooby-Doo solves mysteries: run around panicking, trip over some clues, and eventually stumble onto the answer. Fun for cartoons, terrible for uptime.
Sherlock-style debugging is different. It’s calm, systematic, and relies on evidence instead of vibes. You form a hypothesis, test it, and narrow the problem until the bug is cornered.
I once spent half a day chasing a “broken” API response, convinced it was the backend’s fault. Logs looked messy, requests were failing. Turned out… I’d been sending Content-Type: application/json while sending plain text. Rookie mistake, but I wasted hours because I didn’t slow down and test the assumptions. Sherlock would’ve caught it in 10 minutes.
How to build this habit:
- Use proper debugging tools (your IDE has a debugger use it, not just
console.log). - When a bug appears, write down what you expect vs what you see.
- Change one variable at a time. (If you fix three things at once, you don’t learn the root cause.)
- Keep a little “bug diary” of what you tried. Future you will recognize patterns faster.
Julia Evans has some legendary debugging zines that show this habit in action. They’re fun, comic-style, and way better than StackOverflow rabbit holes.
Because here’s the thing: any dev can get lucky once. But the 10x devs? They debug like detectives, not like cartoon dogs chasing ghosts.
3. Treat git like your memory bank
Most developers treat Git like a broom closet: shove stuff in, hope it doesn’t fall out, pray no one looks too closely. The problem? When things break (and they will), you’ll need a clean trail of breadcrumbs to find your way back.
A 10x dev doesn’t just “use Git.” They write history for future archaeologists aka their teammates, or themselves six months from now when prod is on fire.
Back at one job, I had to debug a billing issue. The app was charging users twice in rare cases. The bug wasn’t obvious in the codebase. You know what saved me? A commit message from a teammate six months earlier:
fix double-charge when retrying failed payment (stripe webhook)
Without that, I would’ve been spelunking in 20 files blind. Instead, I jumped straight into the diff, saw the edge case logic, and nailed the fix. Commit messages are literally free time machines.
How to use git like a pro memory bank:
- Write commits like journal entries, not riddles. (“Fix null bug in login flow” > “stuff”)
- Don’t fear
git bisect. It’s criminally underrated for finding which commit introduced a bug. - Learn branching strategies (feature branches, rebase vs merge). Saves your team from merge hell.
- Push often. Small, atomic commits are easier to roll back than one monster “final-final-v2” dump.
If you want receipts: the Pro Git book is free, and it’ll level you up in ways that StackOverflow copy-pastes won’t.
Treat Git as your brain’s external hard drive. Future you will be grateful you left a trail of readable checkpoints instead of a history of WIP commits and “fixed it lol.”
4. Obsess over environments (local dev, CI, prod)
“Works on my machine” is the battle cry of every dev who hasn’t made peace with environments yet. Local dev feels smooth, then CI screams, and prod straight-up sets itself on fire. Suddenly you’re three coffees deep trying to reproduce a bug that only happens in Docker on Tuesdays.
The 10x dev doesn’t just code they engineer environments. They know that smooth local setups, reliable CI pipelines, and predictable prod configs save days of debugging.
At one startup, our onboarding was: “Clone the repo, run npm install, pray.” Half the time, dependencies were out of sync. New hires burned weeks chasing phantom build errors. Eventually, we Dockerized the dev environment. Suddenly, onboarding time dropped from days to hours. It wasn’t glamorous, but it scaled us like crazy.
Habits that pay off forever:
- Script your setup. If someone needs 12 Slack messages to get your app running, you’ve already failed.
- Mirror environments as much as possible (use
.envconfigs, docker-compose, or Vagrant if you’re feeling retro). - Add sanity checks in CI lint, tests, build so prod isn’t the guinea pig.
- Document the weird stuff. That one SSL flag you always forget? Write it down.
Want receipts? Check out Docker Compose’s quickstart it’s literally built for “stop ruining your new dev’s day.”
Because let’s be real: tools and languages come and go. But the dev who nails reproducible environments? They’re the one everyone begs to stay when things go sideways.
5. Read code like docs
Most devs read documentation. Fewer read code. The 10x dev? They treat real-world repos as their textbooks.
Documentation lies, gets stale, or skips the weird stuff. Code doesn’t. If you want to level up fast, peek under the hood of the tools you use daily.
Early in my career, I struggled to understand how React’s state updates actually worked. Docs gave me the basics, but edge cases around batching were confusing. One weekend, I pulled up the React source code on GitHub and traced how state changes bubbled through the scheduler. Suddenly, the “weird bugs” I hit at work made sense because I wasn’t guessing anymore, I’d seen the engine.
How to make this a habit:
- Once a week, open a library you use and follow one function end-to-end.
- Pick popular repos with active contributors (React, Django, Kubernetes). Their code is often better than half the tutorials out there.
- Don’t try to understand everything. Start small follow a single API call or component lifecycle.
- Use GitHub search like a detective: find where functions are declared, where they’re called, what’s tested.
It’s like watching high-ELO gameplay in your favorite esport. You pick up patterns, tricks, and mechanics you wouldn’t find in the beginner guides.
So yeah, next time you’re stuck, don’t just Ctrl+F through StackOverflow answers. Crack open the repo itself it’s the best documentation you’ll ever get.
6. Embrace boring consistency
Every dev loves to argue about tabs vs spaces, snake_case vs camelCase, or where braces should go. (Hot take: none of it matters if your codebase looks like a patchwork quilt.)
The real productivity booster? Consistency. Boring, automated, don’t-have-to-think-about-it consistency.
Why? Because every tiny decision burns mental RAM. If you have to stop and wonder, “Do we name this getUserId or fetch_user_id?” a hundred times a day, you’re not doing deep work you’re just context-switching yourself into oblivion.
On one project, we didn’t enforce linting. Everyone pushed their “style.” The repo looked like six people had rage-typed it at 3AM in different languages. Reviewing PRs felt like deciphering hieroglyphics. Once we added ESLint + Prettier, 80% of our nitpick debates vanished overnight. PR reviews got faster, dev happiness went up, and nobody had to argue about spaces again.
How to build the habit:
- Install linters/formatters and run them automatically.
- Stick to naming conventions and folder structures boring is good.
- Treat coding style guides like basketball rules: everyone plays better when the rules are the same.
Want proof? Prettier’s tagline literally says it best: “Code is art. Prettier is Picasso.” Check the Prettier docs one setup and suddenly your team never fights about indentation again.
Consistency isn’t glamorous. But it’s the habit that unlocks flow state because you never have to waste brain cycles on stylistic noise.
7. Learn in public
A lot of devs hoard their learning like it’s secret tech loot. They quietly Google, tinker, and stash half-baked notes in dusty folders. The problem? Nobody grows from that not you, not your team, not the community.
The 10x dev flips that mindset. They learn in public: share messy notes, half-working code, or lessons learned from breaking things. Not because they’re experts, but because explaining things out loud makes you become one.
I once tweeted a dumb bug fix about npm link conflicts. It was barely two sentences. That thread got way more engagement than the polished “thought leadership” blog posts I’d sweated over. And the replies? Other devs dropped fixes, explanations, and war stories that went deeper than anything I could’ve found alone.
Why it works:
- You attract feedback loops (people correct you, add context, share better solutions).
- You build an internet paper trail of growth. Recruiters and hiring managers love this.
- You help the next dev who’s Googling that exact error message at 2AM.
Want receipts? Check out swyx’s Learn In Public essay. It’s basically the manifesto for this habit.
Practical ways to start:
- Share a snippet and what you learned on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, or even Discord.
- Write a quick “Today I learned” post instead of a polished essay.
- Answer questions on StackOverflow even if it’s just one.
Learning in public feels scary at first, but it compounds like crazy. And if you’re afraid of looking dumb? Congrats, that’s how literally every dev feels. The trick is realizing nobody remembers your mistakes but they will remember your helpful posts.
8. Keep a personal dev wiki
Your brain is RAM. It’s fast, but it forgets everything the second you context switch. If you don’t offload what you learn, you’ll keep “rediscovering” the same bug fix or CLI command like it’s Groundhog Day.
That’s where a personal dev wiki comes in. It doesn’t matter if it’s Obsidian, Notion, or just a folder full of Markdown files what matters is that you’re building a second brain for your coding life.
I once hit the same weird Docker networking bug three separate times in a year. Each time, I lost hours chasing it. On the fourth time, I finally found an old note I’d left in Obsidian with the exact workaround. Fixed it in five minutes. Past me had basically sent me a cheat code.
How to make it stick:
- Create a
/snippets.mdor “TIL” file in your repo or notes app. - Save CLI tricks, regex patterns, error fixes, and links you know you’ll forget.
- Tag or index them so they’re searchable later.
- Bonus: screenshot your debugging diagrams or whiteboard sketches before erasing.
Want receipts? The Obsidian community is full of devs who swear by their vaults. Logseq and Notion have similar cult followings.
Think of it like your own dev Pokédex. Every time you solve a problem, you capture it so you never waste time catching the same bug twice.
9. Talk to humans, not just compilers
Some devs write code like they’re in a cave duel with the compiler grunting at errors until it finally submits. But here’s the twist: the real game isn’t convincing machines, it’s communicating with humans.
Your teammates, future maintainers, and even your past self all need to understand what the heck you were thinking. That means writing docs, asking clear questions, and leaving thoughtful PR reviews.
At a past job, I watched a junior dev submit a PR with zero context. Just code. Reviewers had to reverse-engineer what the change even was. After a few rounds of confusion, the lead sat them down and said:
“Code isn’t the deliverable. Communication is.”
That stuck. When the dev started writing one-paragraph PR descriptions and adding diagrams, review time dropped in half and suddenly, everyone wanted to pair with them.
How to practice this habit:
- Write PRs like mini blog posts: problem → solution → trade-offs.
- Ask better questions. Instead of “why isn’t this working,” try “here’s what I expected, here’s what I tried, here’s what I saw.”
- Treat docs as part of the product. A good README is worth more than a thousand Slack threads.
Want proof? Even Stack Overflow’s guide on asking questions is basically a masterclass in dev communication.
Because the truth is: the compiler doesn’t care about your variable names. But your teammates do. And if you can’t explain your code to humans, you’ll always be the bottleneck in the pipeline.
10. Delete code without fear
Here’s a spicy truth: writing code isn’t what makes you a 10x dev. Deleting code is.
Every line you ship is a liability it has to be tested, maintained, secured, and eventually debugged. The less code your system needs to do its job, the fewer landmines you leave for future devs.
I once inherited a service that was 10,000 lines deep. We planned a full rewrite because it felt “too complex.” On a hunch, I started pruning. By the end of a week, I’d deleted 40% of the code duplicate functions, outdated features nobody used, half-baked experiments. The app ran smoother, tests passed faster, and onboarding new devs got easier. Nobody missed a single deleted line.
How to practice fearless deletion:
- Kill dead code ruthlessly. If it’s not used, it’s just clutter.
- Favor simplicity over “clever abstractions.” Two small functions beat one 200-line “god class.”
- Use feature flags or branches to test removals safely.
- Trust version control. Git remembers what you delete you don’t need to hoard.
For receipts, check Dan McKinley’s “Choose Boring Technology”. His take: fewer moving parts means fewer disasters waiting to happen.
11. Optimize for team, not self
There’s this image of the “10x engineer” as a hoodie-wearing loner who codes faster than an entire team combined. Reality check: if you’re only making yourself faster, you’re at best a 1.5x dev. The real 10x effect comes from making five other devs 2x better.
At one company, onboarding a new dev meant two full days of “setup hell.” I got tired of answering the same Slack DMs (“Why does Postgres keep crashing?”), so I wrote a single setup.sh script that handled dependencies, migrations, and env vars. Suddenly, new hires were productive in under an hour. That script saved hundreds of collective hours across the team.
Practical ways to do this:
- Automate boring stuff (onboarding scripts, release notes, changelogs).
- Share knowledge in lightweight docs, not just brain-dumps in meetings.
- Improve shared tooling instead of hacking your own shortcuts.
- Review PRs like a mentor, not a gatekeeper.
Want evidence? Look at the rise of DevEx (developer experience) it’s now considered critical engineering work because teams realize that 1 hour saved for 20 devs is 20 hours back in the bank.
Optimizing for team > optimizing for self. That’s how you shift from being “the hero coder” to the person nobody wants to lose.
12. Stay curious outside the stack
It’s easy to get stuck in your lane. You’re a React dev, a Python backend dev, a “Kubernetes person.” You get good at your stack… and then five years later the industry has moved on, and suddenly your skills feel like Windows XP.
The 10x dev habit? Stay curious beyond your comfort zone. Peek into languages, frameworks, and even domains that aren’t “yours.” You don’t have to master them — just knowing how things tick outside your bubble makes you adaptable, and it makes your mental models stronger.
I started dabbling in Rust for fun, just to see why everyone was yelling about it on Hacker News. A year later, that curiosity paid off when I had to optimize a backend service. Even though we stayed in Go, concepts I’d learned from Rust (ownership, borrowing) influenced how I designed safer data flows. Side quest → main quest reward.
Ways to practice this curiosity:
- Pick a random tool/language once a quarter and build a toy project.
- Skim docs or watch a crash course for something outside your job stack.
- Read about infra, networking, or databases even if you’re “just a frontend dev.”
- Follow communities outside your bubble (HN, Reddit, niche Discords).
Receipts? Check out The Architecture of Open Source Applications. Each chapter covers a completely different stack, and it’s like peeking into other universes.
Because here’s the truth: frameworks age like milk. Curiosity ages like wine. The dev who keeps exploring won’t just keep up they’ll be ahead of the curve when the next big shift hits.
Conclusion
Here’s the hot take: “10x devs” aren’t mythological geniuses grinding LeetCode in dark basements. They’re just regular engineers who stack boring, compounding habits until it looks like magic.
The flashy stuff new frameworks, hot AI copilots, clever one-liners comes and goes. But the dev who writes for future-them, documents commits, sets up reliable environments, and learns in public? That’s the one who scales across projects, teams, and even tech generations.
Honestly, if you look back a year from now and realize you’ve built even half of these habits, you’ll already feel like you leveled up more than any tool or bootcamp could give you.
Slightly controversial closer:
AI isn’t going to replace you tomorrow. But if your habits are weak, AI will expose that. The devs who thrive in the AI-era aren’t the ones with the fanciest prompts they’re the ones who already built strong fundamentals and habits that compound.
So yeah, skip the “how to be 10x” memes and start stacking these habits. Future you (and your team) will be very, very grateful.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by