Whenever I hear the phrases "rock star developer" or "code ninja", I think, "Oh, they want some young fresh-out-of-college full-of-himself developer who thinks a language named after a rock is the wave of the future."
Jokes aside, those phrases raise red flags in my mind. I think maybe it is that from such an employer, I would expect to see the occasional presentation with swear words ("We're all adults, here" -- "Sure, but you act like you just left your parents' house, and with your first taste of freedom, you express your naughty self."). Ah, that is the word I am looking for: professionalism. I have a hard time taking them seriously.
When a company asks for a rock star developer, I think pretty much this:
> "Rock star" signals that you haven't thought enough about the role this developer will fill, leaving developers with a feeling that they'll be receiving ill-defined requirements, not enough time, or not enough resources to do their job (in addition to being overworked and underpaid).
Or more specifically, they really need 5 people to do this work, but they only plan to get 1.
Let's add that regardless of what anyone says about how "great" programmers are n times more productive than mediocre programmers that productivity is not the number one driving force behind these job descriptions. Business people want bang for their buck, and they seem more informed by (non-existent) wunderkind genius teenager and movie hacker stereotypes than any kind of reality based measure. Budgeting concerns are where it's at.
One has to wonder how much the ranks of computer science programs everywhere would swell if the other half of this supposed rock star equation were present. Orgies, copious narcotics, groupies, press coverage, and throngs of adoring fans? For an office job? Shit yeah, I'll learn everything von Neumann ever day-dreamed about. Worst case scenario I can take my girlfriend out to the beach and write her a little PHP script that outputs a screed indicating my level of interest (over HTTP), right?
In all fairness, there are individuals of that calibre that can accomplish an enormous amount of progress - even on the 1/5 ratio that you reference.
But I would venture to say that you never find that kind of person from a job posting. A "5/1 ratio" person certainly only lands his next gig through word of mouth.
What I think of when I hear "Rock Star Programmers"?
I think how most musicians, signed to a major label, who perform as "rock stars" still get a net zero payoff after two years.
I think how if programming degenerated to the level of music or motion pictures, the average programmer would labor for nearly nothing in a start-up "hoping to be discovered" while handful got a fake buy-outs with no long term money and a much smaller handful became actual multi-millionaires.
> if programming degenerated to the level of music or motion pictures, the average programmer would labor for nearly nothing in a start-up "hoping to be discovered"
A recruiter contacted me via email looking for a developer "at the Jedi level". Interestingly, though she said she'd read my resume, she was looking for a Java developer in Maryland (I am a Ruby developer in Chicago). I asked her to clarify what skills the Jedi level entailed (I couldn't help myself). She wrote back and said that it meant they wanted "a rock star"
Perhaps you should have alluded to an ability to produce code without physically interacting with a computer system, and to control the minds of the weak-willed--like department VPs. I'd be interested to see how far you could push it.
I've always felt like going to a "rock star" job interview with dyed blue hair in a mohawk, ripped jeans, chains, black string vest, black nail polish, black eye liner, leather jacket, walk in late and demand only blue M&M's.
The M&M's thing served a purpose when it started though. It showed attention to detail when that could be important for a decent show or even safety: http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp
If by rock star, you mean someone that parties all night, comes in late and hungover, has weird contractual demands, and trashes hotel rooms on business trips, then yes, I guess I'm a rock star. When do I start?
I agree with you that to me "rock star" always connoted "bratty prima donna" to me.
I would point out that the weird contractual demands are often canaries meant to uncover a venue that has not read the contract closely enough to guarantee the safety of all performers and the audience. The famous example, of course, is Van Halen and the brown M&Ms:
A Microsoft recruiter told me I was a rockstar after an internship interview in 2001. It felt awesome at the time. But now it sounds like a dated way to recruit 19 year olds.
In about the timeframe at MS, I remember stumbling upon a couple of living, breathing, but rarely bathing, young developer/gamer stereotypes being shown around one of the buildings in the Office division by two young, well, they looked like strippers dressed to appear in a porno as two hot "professional" women who let loose at the office.
I worked at one of these places, as a contractor. They never offer health insurance. They buy a lot of pizza and junk food, and give out lots of cheap praise, but will never send you to a conference or otherwise contribute to your well-being or professional development.
These guys offered me a permanent position, and I turned it down for a real job.
It's just semantics. The term rock star was involved in the recruiting process of my current job, and those who used it included a great hands on CTO and a CEO with above average tech knowledge. I had no illusions as to some kind of huge salary or RIAA like treatment.
It's cliche, yea. But sooner or later you'll miss out on a great opportunity if you run away when you see "rock star".
It's probably all the time spent on LtU mucking with my brain, but I have to suppress a minor rage every time I see this idiom. Does this happen to any other programming languages people?
My experience is "Rails, small team, git or hg, won't mind you reading programming blogs during work hours, office environment will look fun, telecommuting unlikely."
The whole notion of software engineers having much in common with rock stars seems rather misguided. Being a software engineer does not usually involve making loud noises, trashing hotel rooms, having a shallow superficial personality, attracting teenage groupies of the opposite sex, repeatedly firing your manager or buying football teams.
Recruitment consultants and estate agents have a lot in common - both use limited vocabulary as props to fill adverts they don't spend nearly enough time thinking about.
A house with 'character' is in a bad state of repair.
A 'rockstar developer' is competent, but young enough to not know his or her worth.
There is no such thing as a rock star developer. It's a stupid stupid term. You have no inherent connection with rock music, you are not famous and don't have thousands of adoring fans. I'm convinced that a number of balding, pony tailed idiot developers and snotty college grads think they do - but you don't - get over yourself.
Stop using the term, right, now, it's stupid, seriously.
I'm not going to get started on "code ninja". Jesus... WTF comes up with this rubbish.
The analogy breaks down when the author implies that rock star musicians (or really musicians of any kind) are paid a salary by the record companies. All the record companies pay are advances, and then the rest is just gouging the artist's creative output for every expense they can muster.
At first I thought that's what the article was going to get into: "We want you to produce amazingly high-quality output for an unfairly-low wage and relatively low performance bonuses." Instead it implied that rock star musicians get a significantly better deal than "rock star engineers," and that's pretty bogus. Just ask an aspiring rock star if they'd like to make ~$75K base salary with bonuses (i.e. equity) that reward the quality of their output.
Whenever someone is advertising for "Rock Stars," I immediately have two thoughts:
1) Will they be paying me Rock Star money?
2) Oh great, another bunch of douchebag middle managers trying to sound trendy....
There is no way that they really want a rock star, i.e. a fussy, unreliable prima donna who won't work unless they get things their way. What they really want is a genius who's inexplicably dumb enough to work for median salary.
Here it's just a lazy way for clueless HR people to say "highly/broadly skilled." It indicates as little thought as someone who says, "You rock!" when you performed some technical task they don't understand, whether it took ten hours or ten minutes.
Someday we may well ask, "What was it, once, to rock?"
Finally someone put into words the cringeworthy feeling of seeing "rock star" all over the place. On the other hand, I think people use the term because it so commonplace nowadays, rather than it being due to some sort of pretentious attitude or outlook.
[+] [-] Xurinos|15 years ago|reply
Jokes aside, those phrases raise red flags in my mind. I think maybe it is that from such an employer, I would expect to see the occasional presentation with swear words ("We're all adults, here" -- "Sure, but you act like you just left your parents' house, and with your first taste of freedom, you express your naughty self."). Ah, that is the word I am looking for: professionalism. I have a hard time taking them seriously.
[+] [-] mey|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] access_denied|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sbov|15 years ago|reply
> "Rock star" signals that you haven't thought enough about the role this developer will fill, leaving developers with a feeling that they'll be receiving ill-defined requirements, not enough time, or not enough resources to do their job (in addition to being overworked and underpaid).
Or more specifically, they really need 5 people to do this work, but they only plan to get 1.
[+] [-] ary|15 years ago|reply
One has to wonder how much the ranks of computer science programs everywhere would swell if the other half of this supposed rock star equation were present. Orgies, copious narcotics, groupies, press coverage, and throngs of adoring fans? For an office job? Shit yeah, I'll learn everything von Neumann ever day-dreamed about. Worst case scenario I can take my girlfriend out to the beach and write her a little PHP script that outputs a screed indicating my level of interest (over HTTP), right?
[+] [-] blantonl|15 years ago|reply
But I would venture to say that you never find that kind of person from a job posting. A "5/1 ratio" person certainly only lands his next gig through word of mouth.
[+] [-] joe_the_user|15 years ago|reply
I think how most musicians, signed to a major label, who perform as "rock stars" still get a net zero payoff after two years.
I think how if programming degenerated to the level of music or motion pictures, the average programmer would labor for nearly nothing in a start-up "hoping to be discovered" while handful got a fake buy-outs with no long term money and a much smaller handful became actual multi-millionaires.
[+] [-] alnayyir|15 years ago|reply
Welcome to the source of my startup skepticism.
[+] [-] saturn|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fablednet|15 years ago|reply
Recursive Super-Hero Bingo for the win!
[+] [-] khafra|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TamDenholm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timwiseman|15 years ago|reply
The M&M's thing served a purpose when it started though. It showed attention to detail when that could be important for a decent show or even safety: http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp
[+] [-] ANH|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zachwaugh|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SpaceHobo|15 years ago|reply
I would point out that the weird contractual demands are often canaries meant to uncover a venue that has not read the contract closely enough to guarantee the safety of all performers and the audience. The famous example, of course, is Van Halen and the brown M&Ms:
http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp
[+] [-] smokey_the_bear|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] easp|15 years ago|reply
Perhaps you were recruited by a related program?
[+] [-] kabdib|15 years ago|reply
Rock Star = He looked more productive than he actually was.
[+] [-] wheaties|15 years ago|reply
Rock Star = praised, promoted, highly visible, and in management's view infallible.
[+] [-] jobu|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] terra_t|15 years ago|reply
I worked at one of these places, as a contractor. They never offer health insurance. They buy a lot of pizza and junk food, and give out lots of cheap praise, but will never send you to a conference or otherwise contribute to your well-being or professional development.
These guys offered me a permanent position, and I turned it down for a real job.
[+] [-] nickdunkman|15 years ago|reply
It's cliche, yea. But sooner or later you'll miss out on a great opportunity if you run away when you see "rock star".
[+] [-] iskander|15 years ago|reply
It's probably all the time spent on LtU mucking with my brain, but I have to suppress a minor rage every time I see this idiom. Does this happen to any other programming languages people?
[+] [-] JustinSeriously|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] motters|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Vargas|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] lwhi|15 years ago|reply
A house with 'character' is in a bad state of repair.
A 'rockstar developer' is competent, but young enough to not know his or her worth.
[+] [-] jph98|15 years ago|reply
There is no such thing as a rock star developer. It's a stupid stupid term. You have no inherent connection with rock music, you are not famous and don't have thousands of adoring fans. I'm convinced that a number of balding, pony tailed idiot developers and snotty college grads think they do - but you don't - get over yourself.
Stop using the term, right, now, it's stupid, seriously.
I'm not going to get started on "code ninja". Jesus... WTF comes up with this rubbish.
[+] [-] thenduks|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BrandonM|15 years ago|reply
At first I thought that's what the article was going to get into: "We want you to produce amazingly high-quality output for an unfairly-low wage and relatively low performance bonuses." Instead it implied that rock star musicians get a significantly better deal than "rock star engineers," and that's pretty bogus. Just ask an aspiring rock star if they'd like to make ~$75K base salary with bonuses (i.e. equity) that reward the quality of their output.
[+] [-] philwelch|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grammaton|15 years ago|reply
1) Will they be paying me Rock Star money?
2) Oh great, another bunch of douchebag middle managers trying to sound trendy....
There is no way that they really want a rock star, i.e. a fussy, unreliable prima donna who won't work unless they get things their way. What they really want is a genius who's inexplicably dumb enough to work for median salary.
[+] [-] _b8r0|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 5teev|15 years ago|reply
Someday we may well ask, "What was it, once, to rock?"
[+] [-] lr|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonathanjaeger|15 years ago|reply