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Ask Slashdot: Are 'Rock Star' Developers a Necessity?
An anonymous reader writes "Do you think so called 'rock star' developers are necessary at every company? Personally, I don't think so, and I equate it to not needing a college degree to work at Walmart. If you give every problem a complexity value from 1 to 10, and your problems never get higher than a 6 or 7, do you need people capable of solving the 10s? I work for a large software company and I'd rate myself a 7. There are more technically proficient developers, but I don't have an ego about my work, I work well with coworkers and customers, and I bring people up around me. Most 'rock stars' I've seen have been difficult to work with. Most of them are no longer with the company because they were terminated or quit for more money. Is this usually the case? Is it worth the trouble? (Note to any managers reading this: if you have a rockstar who is a pleasant person, pay them well; they are very rare.)"
My coding is mediocre at best, and I know it. I still want to feel useful. Please say something nice to me. Please make me feel better.
The term "rockstar" is subjective and only douchebags use it. You could be considered a rockstar because you say you are bringing those around you "up" and are probably doing that by learning and training others about what you learn. You may not know how to develop something in a way when you start but you can learn and apply it when you do. I f-ing hate terminology like that.
If Rockstar had no developers then how would Grand theft Auto V be completed? ;)
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
You're conflating two unrelated things: Competence and attitude. You might find The No Asshole Rule an interesting source. People who can't cooperate with other people are not a necessity, no matter how amazing they are.
But... When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The thing that makes exceptional developers exceptional isn't their very specialized ability to solve weird problems no one really needs to solve. It's their ability to spot an opportunity to replace a hard problem with an easy one, or to massively improve performance by solving a slightly harder problem. And that really is that useful, even if you don't directly see the benefits. You can do nearly everythign with plodding, methodical, mediocre work. Doesn't mean you won't be happier with the results if you have someone better available.
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I'm a tech lead at a startup and have worked at mid-size companies (I've avoided large corporations). Even if your problems are difficulty 10, you don't need a "rockstar" to solve them. My experience with typical rockstar developers has been similar to yours, they work poorly with others, communicate poorly, and often write inscrutable code. I firmly believe that nobody is invaluable. No company can afford to have a person that were they hit by a bus, or just left, the company would fail.
There are plenty of developers out there that wouldn't be considered "rockstars" in the stereotypical sense but when given a problem, I know they will produce good, well thought out, performant code within a short period of time. During development they will seek out criticism from their peers (and they see the rest of the team as their peers) and the final solution will be respected and understood by the team. I think of these people as seasoned engineers, not rockstars and certainly not developers. Engineers break down problems and build a solution before they ever write a line of code. I also believe you can become a seasoned engineer rapidly, possibly even straight out of college. It's about perspective, not necessarily experience.
One of the most important things in an engineering group, in my opinion, is the ability to walk into a room, argue out a solution, possibly admit you're wrong and somebody else's solution is better, but know when to fight your corner, then leave the room as friends and colleagues, ready to build the solution together. The ego rockstars carry makes that scenario impossible.
The "rock start" developers are absolutely necessary, because in a *real* project they contribute the majority of the *tough* code for a system -- the code that is "greek" to the rest of the team, but which works.
I don't consider myself a "rock star"; rather I am dedicated and stubborn and hammer away at tough problems until I find a solution. But sometimes I fail to find a solution, especially with complex prioritization and queueing algorithms that have just too many special cases (one recent project in particular comes to mind.)
But I have great respect for the "rock stars", and I think it's worthwhile to deal with their idiosyncracies. But I'm good enough at my job that I can *talk* to them, and I'm egotistical enough to get in full-bore arguments with them and *demand* their respect in return.
Team efforts have never been for the faint of heart, chip-on-the-shoulder personalities. Your ego will be bruised and crushed if your teammates are worth working with, because *good* people have opinions, and will often disagree with you. Be prepared to defend your own opinions with vigour, and stop crying that people aren't being "nice" to you. The road to success in this industry is littered with the bodies of "nice" people.
Kaplah!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
In my experiences as a C++ developer our challenges are mainly architectural. None of us are C++ wizards, we all have many C++/STL books on our desks and are frequently scouring forums when we don't know something. C++ knowledge or the lack of it has never been a problem. Chances are that one of us knows how to do that whacky thing you want to do but can't remember how to do it. If we don't know, its really not that hard to experiment a little and figure it out. Worst case were posing on stack exchange or some other forum.
Knowing how to develop a piece of software with an OO architecture in C++ is the skill that we find to be more important and harder to find in new devs. We have a few open recs right now and although we get many guys with years of C and C++ experience, few if any know anything about OO. Out of the current employees, less than half are 'good' at OO design.
I have worked with guys who can crank out thousands of lines of real time, embedded code for industrial applications. Globals everywhere, no understanding of encapsulation or data hiding, nothing even resembling an interface. That sucked.
Give me a good designer over a "rockstar" programmer any day.
You need to define your question better.
If you mean "A coder who is very good at solving problems," then yes. Every project develops problems that brute force and more manpower can't accelerate. Someone who can break the logjams is useful everywhere.
If you mean "someone who is super-smart but also an ass," then no. I'd rather have a solid team beat on a problem for a week then allow a morale-killing ass to poison the environment.
Many development project don't need a 'rock star'. They can be done with "typical" architectures, existing frameworks, and just need "assembly-line-type" workers for all of the steps. I'd even say "most" projects are like this and any project can survive without a rock star.
There are also different types of 'rock stars' and they can help on even the most basic project. In general, the 'rock star' can do any/all of these things, but what do they do on a day to day basis varies based on their individual "specialty"
* some can architect the "difficulty 10" projects so it can be implemented in assembly-line fashion by "typical" developers
* some can implement the "difficulty 10" projects that wasn't architected well (when a team of N "normal" developers would end up with a late and buggy implementation)
* some can debug like nothing most people have ever seen (they don't usually create difficult-to-find bugs but are a huge asset to the team when the bugs come up which can happen on even the most trivial project)
* some just implement so well (speed of development + lack of bugs) that they literally will be cheaper than a team of N people (so, to the manager they aren't necessary but would be preferred)
* some can mentor, and find other people's strengths, and reorganize efforts on the fly. they can help everyone else be more productive, and can adapt the process/team as requirements change and can be critical to delivering on time and above requirements especially when things go wrong.
* some can help where ever needed (front-end, db, back-end, sysadmin, security, build, etc) and can step in without losing a beat when another member of the team is out (sick, vacation, left for another job).
* some can find bugs in 3rd party libraries or system components (without the source code). find workarounds and/or patch those libraries to continue development quickly while sending the bug fix and appropriate level of explanation to the library developer to get a permanent fix. If you've ever been on a "difficulty 5" project which found a show-stopper bug in a critical 3rd party library during QA, you'll really appreciate this skill. I have seen one case on a "trivial" project where this skill was necessary and a few other cases where it really helped.
I've worked with a very small number of "rock stars" over 30 years. They all had multiple of the above skills. I've worked with 3x as many people who were considered "rock stars" (by themselves and sometimes others) but weren't. In almost all cases, the "fake rock stars" slowed the project down more than they helped and the team would have been better off with one less member.
I dunno, I think the guys in the band without a rockstar make a lot less money.
No definition provided.
The concept of "ROCK STAR DEVELOPER" is a fiction invented by professional recruitment outsources. All developers are "Side Men" - even if some are in the "Musical Director" category.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I just read the book Multipliers. It is targeted towards managers, but I think it is useful information for just about anyone. This dev (who has so far shown no interest in joining management) certainly took it to heart. The book compares "diminishers" and "multipliers".
Diminishers, like your company rockstar. They need to know everything and have the last word. They can appear to be a team player when they're really just using people around them to prop themselves up. They strike fear into people who challenge them. They make large decisions by themselves, or take input from a small inner circle of people. They are at their A game, but diminish other people's output and potential. When people work with diminishers, they feel like they're giving 50%. It is a net loss.
Multipliers create an environment where people can give input with confidence, make mistakes, and learn from them. This doesn't mean they are soft. In return for this they expect greatness and weed out those who can't give it or who can't work with the team. They identify genius (described in the book as an innate, exceptional ability which someone may not even realize they have) and try to flourish it. A multiplier can still be at their A game, but puts emphasis toward helping others grow. When people work with multipliers, they feel like they're giving 150%.
It sounds a lot like some management BS and I'm sure I'm not selling it well, but it really is a great read. It has a lot of studies within tech companies, so it was generally very relateable. It helped me identify areas of improvement in myself, not just in my attitude but also to find opportunities to help others grow where I otherwise may have just taken control and pushed someone out.
Yep. I've worked with a few people I would consider "Rockstar" programmers in the "non-asshole" sense. They were fun to be around, considerate, polite, knew their shit inside and out, and tutored / mentored me and others to become more effective at the parts of the project we worked on.
These days, the first interview question I throw at new candidates is "Tell me a story about a time you had a technical difference of opinion with another person or group, and describe what you did to resolve your conflict and move forward". It's a behavioral interview tactic I picked up from a former big employer, and it tends to be fun to note how much they squirm while recounting past bad blood. Now, no one has really ever totally bombed this question, but making them talk through some of their uncomfortable scenarios provides some good insight into how much experience people have when they inevitably have to deal with conflict resolution... and the mere fact that we ask it kinda prompts them with the expectations we have of our employees for cooperating with others in our environment.
everyone knwo what they mean:
Guru,(80s)
Then prima donna,(early 90s)
Then [insert made up name] (97-2000)
Then unemployed. (2001-2005)
now it's rockstar.
Next week it will be 'earwig' or some other nonsense.
Completed that for you.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Do you think so called 'rock star' developers are necessary at every company? [...]
If you give every problem a complexity value from 1 to 10, and your problems never get higher than a 6 or 7, do you need people capable of solving the 10s?
Those are two entirely different problems you mix there. No surprise you are confused.
"rock star" is mostly an attitude, not a skill level. Some of the very best are not famous, and many of the famous aren't all that good. That is true in all areas, not just music or coding.
So on that question: A "rock star" developer is necessary if and only if he adds value for the company. If you are selling your technology, say you are id software and your main business is selling your game engine to other developers, then a rock star can help you a lot to sell more licenses. Otherwise, no you probably don't need him.
But on the other question: Absolutely yes. Unless your company is tiny, you really, really want at least one brilliant guy on the team. You think in a simple, linear way. The real world rarely works like that. You may be perfectly able to solve that standard problem, but your 10 coder may be able to solve it faster, better, or in a more generic way that can be applied to other problems. Or he may be the one to ask the right questions to make everyone understand that you've been solving the wrong problem all along. If nothing else, he provides a benchmark and an aspiration for everyone else.
If you've never worked with a real pro before, you should. The difference between someone competent and someone brilliant is staggering, and it goes way beyond the difficulty levels of problems he can solve.
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