I for one loathe the term "Rockstar" programmer. For those of us over 40, it connotes someone who is young, with no familial commitments, can work 80+ hours a week, only needs RedBull and Mountain Dew to exist, has no loyalty and will burn out by the time they're 30.
I for one run away from any company looking to hire a "Rockstar" anything. It's overused and abused.
I'll disagree with the last one. Whanever I hire for, I always look for "passion for the craft" - whether it's design, code, marketing, or whatever. A great question is "What's the last book or blog post you've read in your field that got you excited?" If people love what they do enough to explore it in their off-time, they'll (usually) be a cut above the rest... And they won't get bored/tired of their work as soon or as easily (assuming you can provide interesting work).
In the context of the parent article, I have spent ample time cleaning up the code and mess of people who get excited about something, then about something else, and never complete what they begin.
It could be just a semantic difference, but I would prefer someone who is steadfast rather than passionate--because most work isn't poetry, it's plumbing.
I don't think being excited/passionate about something means "messy and can't complete projects" - that means they are perhaps excited about the wrong thing.
Some plumbers actually like plumbing. The act of creating things, reading about new techniques/materials/tools, solving the occasional interesting plumbing problem, working with customers and other contractors (and learning about THEIR needs so they can be a better plumber). If they are that kind of plumber, they go home and read Plumberblog.com, hang out with other plumbers talking shop, etc.
"I don't think being excited/passionate about something means "messy and can't complete projects" - that means they are perhaps excited about the wrong thing."
It doesn't correlate 100%, but the majority of stuff I've seen by the visibly 'passionate/excited' people does indeed end up far more of a mess than other code I've had the pleasure of working on.
It can indeed just mean someone is excited about the craft, but usually, from what I've seen, people are getting excited about learning new things, and almost by definition, they don't know how to use those things efficiently. Things = libs, coding techniques, etc. Those 'things' don't have to be 'new', just 'new' to the passionate individual. In those cases, the 'excitement' is coupled with "my first time doing X".
Passion is in stark contrast to egoless programming, which (aww, shucks!) is a pillar of the agile methodology that those who want passionate programmers pay lip service to.
So, when a company requires a passionate programmer for agile development, you know they're deep into bullshit and buzzwords.
Does that make it a negative if you're time away from work involves family, outdoor activities, DIY projects, etc? I think that what you are saying is what most people look for. Someone who writes code for a living and then goes home to write code to relax. That generally fits the young, unmarried/no kids, recent college grad stereotype.
I'm curious because I have been burnt out at work and decided to focus on those things I mentioned. I'm much healthier and productive overall. Yet if I went to an interview I wouldn't have hours of OSS commits on projects I worked on after work to meet most job requirements.
I'm 30 (dunno if that's "young"), married, and write code to relax... kids might change that though (or at least change how much time I have to relax!). Not that I think everyone needs to work the same, mind you...
Kids don't change that. My little girl is 5 weeks old and I find much solace behind my editor during quiet times :) It's reinvigorated with the hope of whatever I learn I can pass down in the future.
I totally agree. Coding while monsters from cartoons and video games are growling in the background.
Or when my 4yr and 6yr old are fighting and a teenager is playing loud music.
I have a 14-month-old son, and I'm in the same boat. I watch him while my wife goes to night school, and after he goes to bed, I have a few of my most calming and productive hours of the day.
Don't worry about it. You'll expect 0 time to code but then really appreciate and make the most of it whilst you can. I've made great strides in skills and knowledge since my daughter has been born :)
What the kids do is introduce the "distraction factor"... Right when you're really in the middle of that groove... your baby will waddle in the room and try to kiss you or play with the noisiest toy in the solar system... Then she'll drop it and the dog with run off with it which will cause crying and boom... mood halted...
"Does that make it a negative if you're time away from work involves family, outdoor activities, DIY projects, etc?"
Absolutely not. There's a full spectrum here. But if some of your hobbies/leisure time relates to your work, you're going to be more valuable to an employer (assuming that doesn't get unhealthy). It's great if it's tangential, too. It's not about logging extra hours, it's about what gives you joy. Writing code could be one thing. Reading about new tech could be another. Or reading about related skills (management, design, marketing). If you truly love it, a higher percentage of your work time will be enjoyable, too (which means more productivity and better retention).
I certainly don't blame anyone for having a diverse life. But I have two great candidates, I'll always choose the one who loves their discipline enough that the read about it and noodle with it on the side.
I have two young kids and while it's changing as they get older I hardly have time for ANY hobbies, let alone enough for a range of activities of which this might be one. You say it's not about logging extra hours but in reality that's what it comes down to - you can't read books, write code, explore libraries and so on without time.
Now in part I'm playing devil's advocate - there are podcasts you can listen to on a commute and you can read the odd blog post in a few minutes here and there and a relatively small amount of time can make a difference - but I still think people need to be realistic about what might fit with a particular candidate at a particular point in their life and what that actually means.
I consider myself passionate about programming, and I think passion leads nowhere. A little (or perhaps a lot) less passion would allow me to concentrate on the actual product, instead of seeing an ugly architecture everywhere, or the sheer amount of repetitiveness of imperative programming where functional programming would be a cleaner approach, or tests everywhere when a smarter type system would be better and faster at catching bugs.
But, for better or for worse, I am passionate about programming.
Reading this post made me thing about the term 'Ninja', and when the OP was discussing workhorses, I thought "why do we use the term Ninja? it isn't like Ninjas are out winning wars anymore."
What was a Ninja? An expert martial artists, and incredibly skilled in his craft, which is no longer needed?
I've got to disagree with you on the last one. Personally, I'd rather work with a developer (and hire, should I ever end up in such a position) someone who writes code because it's what they love to do first and because it happens to pay the bills second. Profit motive is powerful, but I'd argue that doing what you love beats all else.
I read a study once that found greater financial incentives are correlated with lower quality of work (might have been productivity), but I can't seem to mumble the right google incantation to bring it up again. I'll post it here if I come across it.
I agree that passion is valuable, but expect me to be passionate about coding and solving problems, please don't expect me to be passionate about your company before I even fully understand who you are and what you're doing.
Passion for continuous improvement is important as well.
Passion is a double edged sword. I've known people who were passionate and misguided. Their passion to propagate their misguided viewpoint was a drain on the team and caused much drama.
There's also the case of the passionate but incompetent. I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about, but I can think of one person I worked with who had the best of intentions and was highly motivated but was just utterly, hopelessly incompetent.
For quite many companies there are people who are passionate about that company and their goals even if they don't [yet] work there. E.g., some high-profile programmer posts about Oculus Rift impled that, and there are many niche-cases for specific business areas.
If you don't understand what the company is and what they're doing, then it's reasonable that you'll be at a disadvantage compared to people who did understand all that before applying for the job and likely applied because of that.
I've always done research, but there's usually a lot of hugely relevant information that's not going to be very publicly available. Oculus is a bad example - most companies are not high profile, in a space with few other significant players that has been romanticized by sci-fi media for decades. Of course, there are always going to be idiots blindly excited by what they imagine, but those aren't the good hires - the best hires learn what they can, then pick the best option, then pursue it passionately.
The research you're looking for is probably from Daniel Pink. He found that for creative tasks, higher financial incentives led to lower quality output. For routine, standardized tasks, financial incentives work well.
Is this what you were looking for? [1] When looking at a financial reward as a motive for great work, a study found this works great for work that is very monotonous/tedious, and horrible for work that requires a lot of thinking. In fact, when offered larger and larger rewards based on better work for the more mentally strenuous work, the quality of work seemed to go down.
I think it goes both ways. Younger engineers need to not avoid hiring old people because of fear of being a culture misfit and older engineers need to stop being self-conscious of their age all the time. Both can be a little bit more flexible and learn more about what other people like and appreciate the diversity that different ages can bring the workspaces. Both sides need to realize that the generalizations are all unrealistic. Young engineers aren't running around with pacifiers in their mouth pissing all over the floor and older people aren't losing their dentures in the snack area and falling asleep at their desk every day at 2pm dreaming about retirement. I say that as an engineer nearing my 40's.
Maybe it does to some people, but I use the term "Rockstar" to connotate:
- highly productive
- gets features shipped (avoid analysis paralysis)
- features rarely have bugs
- features rarely have to be refactored when we scale
- code is easily maintained by other engineers
If such a person were to also work 80+ hours a week, then they would just get that much more done. But I know plenty of people who meet the criteria without working long ours.
I think some people who aren't "rockstars" try to correct for it by working longer hours, but I don't think that's what it's meant to imply.
Most productive engineer I've ever worked with was "older", had a kid, and a family. Easily as productive as the rest of the team combined.
> I use the term "Rockstar" to connotate: - highly productive - gets features shipped (avoid analysis paralysis) - features rarely have bugs - features rarely have to be refactored when we scale - code is easily maintained by other engineers
Then just say you want those things! Why use meaningless fluff words that do nothing but attract a very specific demographic and turn the rest of us off completely?
I'm not sure if you're a recruiter or work with bringing new talent into the team. But when you say "I use the term "Rockstar" to connotate", don't forget many might not interpret it that way.
You could be having the opposite effect by using that term in ads. My experience is anecdotal, myself and my peers, but I skip the rockstar/ninja/gurus ads pretty quickly unless the tech/description draws me back in.
"Rockstar" along with "Ninja" and the like feel like they spring from a deep seated insecurity about what the organisation and the people there do and it's value and appeal.
Rather than hire someone who felt that a job role needed to be sexed up for it to be interesting, I'd far rather employ someone who was comfortable in their own skin with who they were and how they earned their living and didn't feel the need to either big it up or have their ego massaged by someone else describing them in that way.
Exactly. I've seen multiple companies that have their developer ads filled with words like "rockstar" and "ninja" while their other postings (accountants, salespeople, whatever) sound like proper adult jobs. Doesn't exactly scream "developers are taken seriously here".
Yes, I'm always intrigued by that term. So they want a programmer who is into sex, drugs and rock and roll and shows up to work once in a while, always late and never sober?
Right gregd, life is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes endurance to make it beyond 30 as a developer. And, lets face it, we get better, the longer we develop.
But then: enthusiasm and vigour is the domain of the young.
Can't agree more. Developers are the _least_ rockstar-like people. In fact they are the polar opposite. The greatest developers I know have long beards, quiet, humble and do it for the love of the craft. Rockstar often conjures up an image of a douchey don't-care-loner guy.
An older person can be a rockstar too ... it refers to your ability to crush code, not your ability to ingest red bull. Maybe the word has gotten a bit of negative connotation, along with brogrammer, but it's essentially a good thing at heart.
"Crushing" code is another term that makes my hair stand on end. Pretty much use the word "crush" or "disrupt" in any description and it's another red flag for me to move on and not look at your job posting. Maybe I'm just an old fart that will soon be yelling at you kids to get off my lawn. I don't know.
It still sounds to me like you'll use and abuse me. If it all rolls up into this "bro" atmosphere, maybe that should die a fiery death?
Using these terms is doing IT a disservice. If we expect to be included in the boardroom, involved in making business decisions, it's kind of hard to take someone using high school terminology, seriously. Gag me with a spoon...
If it's just a thin layer of whimsy over a serious business culture, I don't consider it a bad thing. If it is a process of "use and abuse" I agree that it's a bad thing.
I for one run away from any company looking to hire a "Rockstar" anything. It's overused and abused.