* Comes up with solutions that no one else would ever think of
* Understands and correctly utilizes libraries and tools down to the system call level or lower.
* Knows how to ship and the engineering and business processes behind making that happen.
* Knows other world class devs and can attract them to the host company.
* the solutions she comes with are easily explained and understood by everyone working on the codebase.
Stories like this: https://medium.freecodecamp.org/we-fired-our-top-talent-best... are all too common.
The part about attracting other world class developers helps with this as everyone will be on the same page.
> Stories like this: https://medium.freecodecamp.org/we-fired-our-top-talent-best.... are all too common.
Maybe for some people but I've never had issue with it. Managing top talent is definitely its own skill though. One of the challenges is integrating them into the team and not having other people upset when they get high profile projects. It's not trivial but it is doable and in my experience, well worth it.
As a guideline, that's not terrible. As a hard and fast rule, it seems almost the definition of "lowest common denominator".
Taken to extremes, it can also preclude working with people who aren't generalists but have a really strong niche.