[bob1029]

I believe the new "rockstar" developer is one who can completely subvert their own ego in order to better serve the business/customer/team.

The age of toiling away with weird tech in a dark corner and then expecting the team to be amazed at your contraptions is 2000% over. I've definitely been through this lesson a few times myself. It works and works until it doesn't and then one day you find that you are left holding a really big bag. My new ego trip is watching junior team members quickly ramp and become productive. Maybe you don't have to turn that ego off at all. Perhaps you just need to find a way to redirect it and get it hooked onto a new, more productive target.

If you want to go try crazy new stuff - do it on your own time. I really don't understand why this is controversial. It's the best of both worlds. I've heard some excuses for why this is infeasible but they're super-duper bullshit to my ears. If it works on your home lab and it is obviously a cool/valuable thing, then maybe put together a 5 minute pitch deck and present it to your manager/cto/etc.

[Solvency]

Maybe for CRUD business apps this is true, but there are constant innovations and research papers coming from rockstars in dark corners of the world. All of the time.

[poslathian]

Beautiful. Agree. The juniors come in with a lot of technical education that would have been near impossible to learn on the job.

Effective teamwork in this setting is just as foundational as skills they acquired in school but they only begin learning it after they graduate.

Very rewarding to contribute to the growth in jr devs teamwork when it happens.