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How 'Rock Star' Became a Business Buzzword
HughPickens.com writes: Carina Chocano writes in the NYT that once, a long time ago, a rock star was a free-spirited, convention-flouting artist/rebel/hero/Dionysian fertility god who fronted a world-famous band, sold millions of records and headlined stadium concerts where people were trampled in frenzies of cultlike fervor. Now 'rock star'' has made a complete about-face and in its new incarnation, it is more likely to refer to a programmer, salesperson, social-media strategist, business-to-business telemarketer, recruiter, management consultant or celebrity pastry chef than to a person in a band. The term has become shorthand for a virtuosity so exalted it borders on genius — only for some repetitive, detail-oriented task. According to Chocano, posting a listing for a job for which only ''rock stars'' need apply casts an H.R. manager as a kind of corporate Svengali; "That nobody is looking for a front-end developer who is addicted to heroin or who bites the heads off doves in conference rooms goes without saying. Pretty much anyone can be a ''rock star'' these days — except actual rock stars, who are encouraged to think of themselves as brands."
Ego branding for the sake of hiring egotistical developers and analysts. Therein lies the rub.
A "rock star" can be a real thing. It could be someone who continually, and repeatedly, produces great work that impacts the entire community. These people exist most don't want the branding. But companies can't hire them; they're too expensive.
So the "rock star" became the one-hit wonder person. Someone who released a nifty script on github and gave a con talk on it. Two years ago.
Slowly, over time, that rock star status has turned into "most influential". That is, those with the most twitter followers, regardless of how good they are at their craft. Don't know anything beyond basic Ruby coding and lack knowledge of security programming... but have 50K followers? Rock Star! HIRED!
Considering oneself a rock star in order to apply for such a job breaks the whole "No Asshole Rule" for hiring.
The article is inane.
First, there is no such thing as a "rock star front-end developer". The front-end space is actually constrained enough that it's possible to know all of it, and act within the limits of those constraints all the way up to the boundaries and no further. So it's a pretty rote work position for a developer.
Second, their definition of what constitutes a "rock star" is inane, in that it's a stereotype of the behaviours of people who have achieved "rock stardom", and not a description of their capabilities. The issue is one of capability, and a "rock star" musician, like it or not, is capable of doing things which others are not capable of doing. It's rather as simple as that, and hence the migration of the analogy into other areas of human endeavor.
Having a developer who is a "rock star" is a significant competitive advantage, in that they will be capable of doing things which others are not capable of doing. This is a competitive advantage, in that it acts as a barrier to entry to your market, because it means that your competitor simply can not hire someone that is capable of competing on your level no matter how much they pay, short of hiring your "rock star" away from you.
This is the equivalent of "first mover advantage", without the pressure of having to execute quickly in order to maintain that advantage. You don't have to spend crap-tons of money on "ramp speed" and "burn rate" and "time to market", and "runway"; as a result, the VC feeding frenzy ends up owning less of a chunk of your company, and you get to be rich instead of making *them* rich (or while *also* making them rich, but not as rich).
So yes, it pays to hire "rock stars" for strategic things (and again, front end web design is strategic, but from end web coding is not; designers can be "rock stars", but front-end developers can not).
So yeah: there are some stupid categories in which to advertise that the person you hire be a "rock star"; there are many others where it's not actually silly, it's smart, or it's even imperative to have one.
Yes: it's really frustrating to recruiters, and to job sites like DICE, when someone asks for a "rock star", and they are incapable of delivering one to their customer, because they have none in inventory. Lump it. Be more desirable to "rock stars", and you will be able to build an inventory; but whining about it in NY Times articles is not going to get you that inventory.
"Rock star programmer" just makes me think diva, someone who is hard to deal with, because they think highly of themselves. Generally these people are not awful. They are either average or good, but they normally not good enough to put up with their pride. "Rock star" also makes me think of programmers who subscribe to the latest trends.
Would you call these people "rock stars": Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Rob Pike, Larry Wall, Linus Tovalds? The good programmers don't make me think rock star. They make me think expert, master, craftsman, or journeyman. In other words, someone who works quietly, turning out software that quietly does the job reliably.