Social media is deceiving in both directions: I have worked with a lot of nobodies and with big names with 10K+ twitter followers. Some of those well known prog

Social media is deceiving in both directions: I have worked with a lot of nobodies and with big names with 10K+ twitter followers. Some of those well known programmers know a lot of trivia about obscure parts of computer science, but that doesn't mean that they are really all that productive when you look at their job contributions as a whole. Other times the fame comes from being big external communicators: Giving a lot of talks about programming doesn't meant that your can code quickly, accurately, or that you can come up with good designs. When we look at what it is for someone to be a great programmer and a good teammate, there's a whole lot of characteristics that are extremely hard to measure in a job interview. Do we really think it's easier to measure them by just hearing someone give talks or reading some articles? Do you really know that your favorite speaker writes good tests, cares about code readability, or will be there for you whenever you have a technical problem? Will they even work as much as you do, or do they have a contract that says that their speaking is their job, therefore leaving your team behind to do things less famous people have to do, like being on call for cyber monday, or making sure the new shiny system is actually operable in production? Therefore, my personal experience working with a lot of the socially famous has given me a lot of respect for the great developers I have met that spend less time in self promotion, and more time working on their own craft and take care of their job and family obligations. I've worked with many that are as good, if not better, than the average famous developer I've work with. You just don't know about them.