🟢🟠 Modern Rockstars and Old-school Rockstars
I can identify two kind of Rockstar profiles. And guess what, only one of them is the one you want in your company
In a previous article, I’ve addressed what a Rockstar is and if it’s a profile needed at some point in the lifecycle of a Tech company. You can read the conclusions👇🏻
Today, we will go in deep into the two classifications of Rockstart Software Engineer I can see nowadays in tech companies, and take a look into the advantages and risks that I find for each of them.
What is an Old-School Rockstar Software Engineer?
What is a Modern Rockstar Software Engineer?
Advantages and risks for each profile
What is an Old-School Rockstar Software Engineer?
The characteristics that define this profile are:
A scripting person. A complete deployment of a containerized system will be implemented in some bash/python/choose-yours script/s.
The pattern architectures are something that this person would try, but never enforce.
Things like Code Review, Pair Programming, or Pair Review are practices not used by this profile.
Secretism is another adjective that could define this profile. This profile tends not to share information with other Software Engineers.
You might find some applications implemented in a programming language far from common.
🟢 Advantages:
The speed of delivering code goes to the maximum. There is no time spent to deliberate the technical decisions with more people since this person is the only one making this kind of decision. This means, new features will reach your customers faster and could lead to a revenue increase.
No time is spent in transferring knowledge to other devs. This is not needed when this person has the full control. That time can be used to develop and deliver new features.
🟠 Risks:
She/He is a single point of failure. This is one of the major risks: One single person with all the technical knowledge about your product. What happens if this person leaves the company?
The lack of communication can lead to problems at the time to share information with the rest of the team. From this, a lack of transfer knowledge will occur across the board.
She/He is the only one that understands the code implemented. As I said before, this person probably did not apply any architectural pattern, and the code was never exposed to code reviews.
What is a Modern Rockstar Software Engineer?
The characteristics that define this person are:
Great communication skills. This profile has expertise in communicating technical solutions to different persona.
Enabler. “Us” and not “I” will be the pronoun that this profile uses the most.
Broad knowledge of many technologies.
Critical thinking. You will be challenged by this profile to find the right technical solution.
Clean architecture, software patterns, monitoring, CI/CD, quality, collaboration, and pair programming are behaviors and thoughts this profile will propagate across the board.
🟢 Advantages:
She/He will make your team and organization grow. Thanks to great communication skills and wide technical knowledge, this person will share the knowledge with the rest of the team/s as the work is done. Everyone else will get the profit from this.
She/He will act as a multiplier on your team and organization, making the rest of your team grow.
She/He will act as a booster for other Software Engineers.
She/He will deliver code with quality and fast. Thanks to the broad experience in Software Engineering’s best practices, this profile will care about delivering value fast and with quality.
🟠 Risks:
Do not put too many topics on the same plate. It’s very tempting to start delegating the majority of challenging themes in this profile. Just ensure you do not overwhelm the person and focus on what brings the most value.
Let’s avoid the opposite. Ensure the person does not get bored. You have to “feed” properly this profile, with challenging and impactful tasks from your organization, otherwise she/he will move soon to another company.
✨ Final thoughts
I’ve seen the Old-School Rockstart at least a couple of companies and I can tell you that’s not what you want in your company if you want to have a good work environment. Even though this person could ship a lot of code, It’s not worth it.
I can see an evolution in our profession and more and more I can see Modern Rockstar people, willing to have an impact on a team and company, bringing a lot of value in a collaborative way. I’ve witnessed how the profile of Modern Rockstar dramatically boosts and improves a whole Engineering organization.
Do not hire wall builders.
Hire multipliers.
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Hire multipliers!