Back in the early 2000s, tech recruiters got their talons on a new phrase: the “rockstar developer”. They’d heard of this mythical creature: the one who ships features at a dizzying pace, who can solve impossible problems overnight, who know exactly what to do.

Like most industry terms, it got twisted, overused, and turned into corporate-speak for someone who we all hate. Painting with a broad brush, you can conjure up images of the lone wolf, a “cowboy coder” who writes messy, unmaintainable code, disregards the team, and leaves a trail of technical debt in their wake. Nowadays, the narrative is that these developers are brilliant but reckless, a short-term gain for a long-term, high-interest loan you’ll be paying off for years. Or more often, people believe that it’s just hype and that the rockstar doesn’t exist, or is a liar.

Fair points! Many of us are cynical and have been burned by the supposed genius rockstar who is brought in by management to get things done.

But the narrative that there is no such thing as a rockstar? That we don’t actually have people who are extremely good at programming? That’s just “tall poppy syndrome” in disguise. We’ve become so focused on sanding down the edges of exceptionalism that we’re at risk of celebrating mediocrity.

The truth is, a true rockstar developer is not a liability. If you’re lucky enough to work with them, they are an incredibly valuable asset to your team. It’s unfortunate how often we’re conditioned to believe that there must be something wrong with someone and we try to find a fault.

Let’s Define

When I talk about a rockstar developer, I’m not talking about someone who just writes a lot of code. Anyone can churn out lines of code. That’s not the hard part. The hard part is programming quickly and well. You’ve probably heard the old cliche that you can do it right, fast, and cheap—but you can only pick two. That’s fair, but somewhere along the way we started settling for only one, or more often ZERO of those.

The defining characteristic of a top-tier developer isn’t just raw output. It’s a trifecta of focus, clarity, and taste.

Imagine you have a complex feature to build. The requirements are a little fuzzy, the path forward isn’t immediately obvious. A typical team might spend days, even weeks, in meetings, debating approaches, going back and forth with product managers, and building prototypes that miss the mark. There’s a lot of churn, a lot of “waffling.”

A rockstar developer, on the other hand, has an almost preternatural ability to cut through the noise. They possess a clarity of thought that allows them to see the most direct path to the right solution. They don’t just build what they’re told; they have a deep, intuitive understanding of the product and the business needs.

And it’s not just feature development, this plays out the same in terms of architecture, bug hunting, and refactoring. There’s a knack for engineering in all of its aspects that they are, quite simply, excellent at.

This is where “taste” comes in.

The Underrated Superpower: “Taste”

“Taste” is a word we usually associate with art, with fashion, with food. But in software development, it’s a critical, yet often overlooked, attribute. It’s an amalgam of deep experience, strong, well-founded opinions, and an intuitive feel for what makes a product, a feature, or a piece of code good.

Think of a master chef. They don’t just follow a recipe. They understand the ingredients on a fundamental level. They know instinctively how flavors will combine, what textures will delight, and how to plate a dish for maximum appeal. They have taste! There’s a combination of art and craft swirling together that sets apart someone who is excellent from someone who is good, or middle-of-the-road.

A developer with good taste operates in much the same way. They’ve seen so many patterns and anti-patterns over the years that they’ve developed strong opinions about what works and what doesn’t. This isn’t arrogance; it’s earned wisdom.

This “taste” manifests in several ways:

• Elegant Solutions: They build clearer solutions that are easier to understand and easier to maintain.
• Reduced Bureaucracy: Their clarity and conviction eliminate the need for “design by committee.” When one person has a clear vision and good taste, you can bypass endless meetings and circular discussions.
• Higher Quality: They have an aesthetic sense for code quality. They write code that is not just functional but also clean, efficient, and built to last.

The idea that a rockstar’s code is inherently complex and hard for others to maintain is, from my perspective, a false dichotomy. More often than not, the opposite is true. They produce solutions that are so well-conceived and cleanly executed that they require less maintenance over time. The coders who are churning out garbage are fast but they lack discipline and taste.

Complexity comes from trying to solve a problem without a clear, guiding vision. The result is often a hodgepodge of competing ideas and quick fixes that accumulates into a mountain of technical debt.

The Tall Poppy Syndrome in Tech

So if these developers are so valuable, why the bad reputation?

This brings us back to “tall poppy syndrome.” It’s a cultural phenomenon where people of genuine merit are resented, criticized, or cut down because their talents and achievements elevate them above their peers.

Instead of admitting that some people are just exceptionally good and fast at engineering quality software, the prevailing narrative seeks to find fault. It attaches negative attributes to them to drag them back down to the average.

• “Oh, they’re just a cowboy coder.”
• “Sure, they’re fast, but the code quality is probably terrible.”
• “They’re not a team player; they leave the rest of the team behind.”

These are excuses. They are defense mechanisms for a culture that is uncomfortable with outliers. It’s easier to blame the high-performer for being “too good” than it is to confront the skill gap, sluggishness, and poor quality in others.

A true rockstar developer can and should work on a team. But it’s a mistake to have someone excellent and then lower the standards. It’s obvious on its face that we need to raise the tide to float all boats—the others on the team should learn from excellence, and those who are excellent should share and ensure that their taste is explained so that others can develop their own taste, and learn from that earned wisdom.

The CTO’s Dilemma: Don’t Hobble Your Best Player

This brings us to the practical reality for a CTO or a tech lead. You have a rockstar on your team, and some of your other engineers are struggling to keep up. The common advice you’ll read online is to rein in the rockstar. Force them to slow down, to write simpler code, to spend more time hand-holding.

I believe this is fundamentally the wrong approach.

Your job as a leader is not to manage the rockstar down; it’s to manage the rest of the team up.

Now, I’m not advocating for a “sink or swim” environment with no support. That’s just poor leadership. But the focus needs to shift. If you are a CTO and nobody else on the team can understand or maintain the code your best engineer is writing, you don’t have a rockstar problem. You have a hiring problem.

In some organizations, software is hard and the baseline for creating it is very high. Some problems require technically complex solutions that aren’t immediately accessible to everyone. If your team members are incapable of rising to the occasion and learning what’s necessary to contribute, then they may not be the right fit for the team you’re trying to build.

Practical Steps for Cultivating Excellence (Without Causing Burnout)

So, how do you create an environment that leverages the incredible power of a rockstar developer while also fostering growth and stability across the entire team? It’s not about abstract ideals; it’s about actionable strategies.

1. Reframe the Role of Junior Engineers:

Instead of seeing junior engineers as a drag on the rockstar’s productivity, view them as apprentices. One of the most effective strategies I’ve seen is to assign the task of documentation to a more junior member of the team.

Think about it. In order to document a complex system, you have to understand it. This forces the junior engineer to read the code, to ask questions, and to engage deeply with the solution. The very act of documenting it is a powerful learning experience. The rockstar spends a little time explaining concepts, and in return, you get excellent documentation and a more capable engineer. It’s a win-win.

2. Leverage Modern Tooling:

The excuse of “poor documentation” is weaker than ever. With the advent of AI-powered documentation tools, generating high-quality, up-to-date documentation is simpler and faster than it has ever been. There is no reason for a system to be a black box now. Make this a priority.

3. Hire for Learning, Not Just for Knowing:

When you’re building out the rest of your team, screen for curiosity, ambition, and a desire to learn. You want people who are excited by the prospect of working with someone better than them, not intimidated by it. A rising tide lifts all boats, but the boats have to be willing to rise.

4. Embrace the “Soloist” Model When Appropriate:

Here’s a controversial thought: sometimes, you don’t need a team. There are countless examples of incredibly successful products that were built, at least initially, by a single, exceptional developer. If your goal is to build an MVP and find product-market fit, sometimes the fastest, most efficient path is to hire one phenomenal person and let them run. Similarly, you can sic a really good engineer on a tough problem, unshackled by process and safety mechanisms until it’s been figured out. Adding more people to a project doesn’t always make it go faster; sometimes it just adds communication overhead and slows things down.

The False Dichotomy of Speed vs. Scalability

Another common critique leveled against rockstar developers is that they prioritize speed over long-term scalability. “They’ll build a fast MVP,” the argument goes, “but it will crumble the moment we try to scale it.”

This, again, is a false dichotomy.

Nobody builds perfect, infinitely scalable solutions from day one. It’s impossible. You can’t possibly anticipate all the future use cases, performance bottlenecks, and changing requirements your product will face. The reality of building software is that you build for the present and adapt for the future.

I would much rather have a rockstar developer who can rapidly adapt their initial solution to meet new scaling demands than a slower team that builds something “scalable” for a future that never arrives. The true rockstar has the skills to evolve the architecture as needed. The less-experienced team will likely have to scrap their initial attempt anyway, having wasted precious time in the process.

When you’re a startup, your primary risk isn’t scalability; it’s irrelevance. You need to build something people want, and you need to do it quickly. A rockstar developer gives you the best chance of achieving that, and it’s very likely that they will also achieve the necessary scalability and stability your product will need.

Where Do You Want Your Risk?

Ultimately, every decision you make is about managing risk. When it comes to hiring, you have a choice.

Do you want to place your trust in a team of less-experienced, cheaper engineers? The risk here is that they will be slow, that they will build a low-quality product that needs to be completely rewritten, and that you will run out of money before you ever find product-market fit.

Or do you want to place your trust in a single, more expensive, exceptional individual? The risk is that they might not work out, or that they might leave. But the potential reward is a high-quality product, built in a fraction of the time, that gives your company the velocity it needs to succeed.

In my years of building and advising software companies, I’ve seen both scenarios play out time and time again. And while there are no guarantees, I’ll bet on the rockstar every single time.

It’s time we stopped trying to tear down our most talented builders. Let’s celebrate their expertise, learn from their clarity, and build teams that are inspired to rise to their level. Stop worrying about the “cowboy coder” myth and start looking for the true rockstars. They’re the ones who will build the future.