There was a time when every developer job vacancy posted online seemed to be looking for “Rockstar” developers — fortunately it seems to have subsided a little now, but it’s still definitely a “thing” and it needs to be stamped out.

Once I had stopped burning with rage at the simple use of that particular phrase I got to thinking about why rockstars might be a good or bad analogy, and whether I’d actually want to work with one.

Unfortunately, as well as being a rage-inducingly irritating term, it turns out that it’s also wildly unhelpful.

You’ll probably have heard various definitions, but there are a number of common traits cited:

• a rockstar developer can make complex problems disappear…
• a rockstar developer writes elegant code that makes angels weep…
• a rockstar developer can do the work of 10 regular developers in half the time…
• a rockstar developer can leap tall buildings in a single bound…

OK, that last one is Superman, but you get my drift.

The truth of the matter is that you really don’t need rockstars — they’re petulant, volatile, and have an over-inflated sense of their own importance.

They also strut around in leather trousers and wear sunglasses. At night. Indoors.

Oh, and they have a tendency to start out strong, falter after the second album, go downhill after the poor critical reception of their new solo project, and then they burn out and, if they’re lucky, they end up in rehab — if that’s the kind of developer you want to hire then I guess you’ve got what’s coming to you.

Rock is dead

You know what? That’s all complete nonsense, and I’m calling it out, right here and right now — the rockstar analogy has officially had it’s day!

If we’re going to find a new, flimsy analogy then let’s stick with music:

You gotta have soul!

The reality is that you’re not a talent scout looking for budding rockstars, you’re running a record label and what you really need is a session band — a group of talented, motivated individuals who each know their own job incredibly well but can work as a harmonious team without ego and switch it up when they need to.

We’re putting the band back together…

By building a strong, collaborative team you are building experience, capability and adaptability — a team of good developers who know how to take their time when they need to, but can also open the taps and get the job done if there’s a crisis.

As a team, your “session band” will consider scalability and maintainability, they’ll consider portability and configuration, they won’t just support the latest devices and web browsers but they also understand when and how to scale back the experience in older browsers, they add good comments, they document their code, they write tests, and — most importantly — they use them.

They may not be at the front of the stage in the full beam of the spotlight, they may not have the tech groupies fawning over them at conferences, but you can’t get by without them.

And you know what? They make it look easy.

Originally posted on Medium