Max Nanis’s website prominently features about two dozen head shots of the skinny, scruffy 22-year-old Southern Californian with his shirt off. At the top of his “About” page, there’s a personalized contact number (936-CALL-MAX) and a link to 10X Management, his professional representation. It looks like the résumé of an actor, seemingly pitched for casting directors and producers—but Nanis’s background is in computational biology. He’s a coder, part of a generation of programming hotshots starting to view themselves more like Hollywood talent than bit jockeys.
Nanis has his agent at 10X Management working to find him the best freelance programming gigs. Launched about a year ago as a dedicated agency for software developers, 10X now represents more than 30 people, taking a 15 percent cut of its clients’ earnings from each assignment. In exchange for that fee, 10X promises to help guide a programmer’s career development, negotiate with employers for better compensation, and handle the mountain of associated paperwork. “We deal with the necessary evils of being a freelance coder so they don’t have to,” says Altay Guvench, one of the management firm’s founders.
