Is that term even used anymore? Feels like it was everywhere a couple years ago.
"Rock star developer" was originally coined to mean literally the anti-pattern of what you want from a Dev team.
It's someone who undeniably has plenty of skill, but who also:
- Has an unbearable ego.
- Doesn't work well with others.
- Doesn't document or comment their work properly.
- Refuses to work to other people's designs.
- Becomes an enormous key man dependency.
(Or some combination of similar traits).
The fact that recruiters heard the term and thought "hey, rock stars are cool, let's get as many of those as possible" is hilariously tragic.