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.)"

Re:Relative

[MrBandersnatch]

Heh, I spent a year cleaning up after the last "10x" developer. 10x the productivity, 10x the bugs.

Re:Relative

[crunchygranola]

Mod this guy up. There are lots of programmers that can crank lots of code that meet functional requirements. Code that is convoluted, inefficient, incomprehensible - code that instantly becomes an enormous burden on the organization trying to use it. If enough technical debt is added by a programmer, his output is strictly negative and you can't "make it up in volume".