tdk2fe

A couple things:

First to the authors question regarding a similar profession - It would seem to me that actual musicians and performers would fall into this category. I haven't seen any definitive measure for identifying an actual Rockstar, or a Rockstar Actor (to use the same vernacular), or Comedian. I don't think salary alone would identify this type of person, since its highly a highly subjective area that are influenced by personal tastes.

I think software shares this as well. What makes a good piece of software? Moreover, what makes a good software developer? Is it ingenuity and intellect? Or is it somebody who is content with the more mundane aspects of a software project, isn't going to write a new Graph API, but consistently and methodically develops clean and working code? In a theoretical scenario - lets say a single guy was responsible for all of the Bash scripting that went into the Init system millions of servers use today. There's nothing cutting edge in those things, its a lot of "start this, then this, and if this happens call this" type of linear design. Would he qualify as a "Rockstar" based on the fact that millions of people rely on his scripts to start machines up? Is he worth more to a potential employer than, say, John Carmack if your developing/supporting a Software as a Service platform?

I've been seeing a lot of articles exploring the Rockstar complex in the past year or so, which makes me think its more or less an invention of marketing than an underlying trend in the industry. Its basically asking "Are there software developers who are insanely good at writing code to solve problems?" The answer is yes - I dont think it merits scientific inquiry.

But there's a more interesting question for me that nobody seems to address; Why the sudden fascination (demand?) for "Rockstars" in development? In my personal experience it seems to be because of a (false) perception that people who write good code are hard to find. And even when you have somebody writing good code, because of the abstract nature of the work, its difficult to deliver something quantitative and tangible on a consistent basis.

I think one huge failure of the industry so far has been to agree on even a basic set of what would qualify somebody to work professionally in it. If I'm a civil engineer, no matter how brilliant I might be, or what my pet projects look like, there's no way in hell i'm getting around a municipal project or getting a contract to build a bridge for a city without at least a PE certification.

Why doesn't something similar exist for programming? It would make sense given that programmers are responsible for things like Air Traffic Control systems, Automated dosing of drugs in hospitals, and a lot of "mission critical" systems that impact millions of people.

I came here to say roughly this. This isn't so much a topic for discussion today, but not long ago I can recall arguments about the difference between programming and scripting. Not long ago, calling yourself a programmer since you made a website in HTML with some CSS was laughable.

I also think the issue with the "Rockstar Developer" discussion is that there's no clear definition of what that even means. The author notes this in the article - and there have been terrible attempts at measuring this (anybody remember getting paid per lines of code?)

One thing i'm working on right now is basically building a bit of a "Blue book" for mundane components of the services we offer.

This seems to have some very positive "work life" balancing effects - it motivates engineers to learn things at a deeper level and develop solutions that cut down on inefficiency. It also encourages people to invest thought into solutions and proposals, as opposed to micromanaging how every hour of a project will get spent.

I think its also more fair to clients, too. Inevitably new things take longer the first couple times you do them, and traditionally the full cost of that learning period gets passed on to the client in one way or another. However, something that took two days to put together and figure out the first time may only take two hours to implement the next time - but it's hardly fair that Client B is only billed 2 hours and Client A is billed 16, simply because they were first to market with something.

Many jobs in the modern economy are flexible.

But we're talking about a national level. To go back to the current top voted comment in this thread - we need to put this into perspective. I think a more accurate statement would read "More high end tech jobs are becoming flexible."

I'm in the same boat you are - I have the luxury of working from home and the mentality is basically as long as i'm meeting a certain number of billable hours per week, nobody really cares about the mundane details of when the work is getting done.

However, one thing I have noticed in the tech industry is that there are a lot of unwritten expectations on both employees and employers. A very common one is what you cited - "Get the job done if it takes 40 or 60 hours". And thats reasonable in my opinion, given competition in the US and the need to deliver projects on time.

But there are Employer commitments made as part of that, too, which are rarely fulfilled. Every company i've worked for in the past 10 years has had some type of policy around bonuses. And every year, measures outside of my control dictate the terms of those. Whether its the economy, stock price, or sales performance (I have nothing to do with sales) there's a different excuse every year, and the payout is laughable compared to the level of bonuses senior management get.

So it seems like we've got a situation where people "Go the extra mile", "Play on the A Team", or otherwise make personal sacrifices to help an employer, whereas employers regularly remit on the obligations they've set to their employees.