the 100x engineers
small teams with sharp tools are rewriting the rules of software leverage
A couple of years ago, around 2020 I remember, the mythic 10x engineers ruled tech Twitter. You surely know the archetype. Someone who could do in a week what most teams shipped in a quarter. They moved fast, typed faster, and left behind a trail of GitHub commits and coffee cups.
Something’s changed.
We’re now living in the era of the 100x engineer. And no, it’s not just a flexed-up version of the old title. It’s a whole new species. Enabled by AI. Multiplied by tooling. They’re not just writing code. They’re orchestrating leverage.
small teams, massive impact
Look at Bluesky, a small social app that’s quietly become a Twitter alternative. Around 20 full-time employees. Nearly 40 million registered users.
Well, tiny team. Lean budget. And yet they’re serving millions of users, building protocol-level infra, and iterating faster.
How?
Because today, one sharp engineer, equipped with the right AI tools, cloud infra, and good taste can build, scale, and maintain systems that used to take full departments.
They’re not 10x more productive. They’re operating in a different dimension.
tools that feel like superpowers
A 100x engineer doesn’t write every line of code by hand. They design systems, prompt copilots, reuse LLM-generated scaffolding, and delegate grunt work to machines. They spend their energy on high-leverage decisions — architecture, interface, feedback loops. And let AI handle the boilerplate.
It’s not just about knowing how to code.
It’s about knowing what not to code.
AI isn’t replacing engineers. It’s amplifying the best ones. The same way spreadsheets didn’t replace accountants, but made the great ones unstoppable.
leverage is the new headcount
Remember when startups needed 20 silicon valley engineers to be taken seriously? Now two people with laptops and a good idea can launch something that feels like magic because the tools are magic. Not even two, remember this one guy Maor Shlomo, who built a one-person startup, Base44, completely solo and sold it to Wix for $80 million in cash after just six months (June 2025). It’s not about having the biggest team or the most funding anymore.
Think Vercel. Supabase. Replit. Claude. GPT-4o. We’re building on the shoulders of abstractions so powerful, it’s almost cheating.
100x engineers are not mythical solo heroes.
They’re highly leveraged operators who understand the stack — technical, product, and human. They’re thoughtful. Opinionated. Resourceful. And ruthlessly focused on outcomes.
so what does this mean for you?
If you’re a builder, this is your moment. You don’t need permission. You need curiosity, taste, and a willingness to ride the wave.
If you’re a team lead or founder, look for leverage-minded engineers. Not just coders. Systems thinkers who see tech as a tool to compress time and scale impact.
And if you’re feeling behind, don’t worry. The 100x mindset isn’t about IQ. It’s about how you approach your work:
Use AI like a cofounder, not a toy.
Treat tools as force multipliers.
Work on what matters most, not what’s most familiar.
We’re not just shipping software anymore.
We’re building futures with teams small enough to fit in a group chat.
And the people doing it?
They’re not superhuman.
Until next time,
Adlet
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