Don't be a 0x Developer

PUBLISHED: JUN 21, 2025 | 219 words, 2 minute read

The trope of the 10x Developer has been written about ad nauseum, but thereโ€™s another type you are more likely to meet in your career - the 0x Developer.

What makes a 0x Developer? These are the folks who:

  • Ask questions they couldโ€™ve answered with a single search
  • Burn time and attention from teammates teaching them, but never learning
  • Managed to become professionally paid developers without having basic computer literacy โ€“ like knowing how to copy & paste a command into a terminal.

Honestly 0x is a bit generous, because sometimes these devs eat up so much energy from the rest of the team theyโ€™re a negative addition, but I think 0x rolls off the tongue better than negative-x Developer1.

This isnโ€™t about skill. Everyone starts somewhere. Mistakes from inexperience are fine, even encouraged, because humans usually need to burn their hand to learn a lesson, no matter how many times you say the stove is hot. But thereโ€™s a difference between not knowing yet, and not bothering to figure it out.

Donโ€™t be a 0x Dev.



  1. : How do I know Iโ€™m not a 0x Dev? Iโ€™m no Kent Dodds, but I occasionally slap enough of the right code & actions together to have numerous people tell me Iโ€™m a useful teammate. Or maybe Iโ€™m a giant hypocrite. โ†ฉ๏ธŽ


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