If you are learning from this person, if they are raising your market value, you'd have a pretty strong incentive to not "vote them off the island" And really,

If you are learning from this person, if they are raising your market value, you'd have a pretty strong incentive to not "vote them off the island" And really, what I've seen is that this plays out socially, too, at least in heavily technical departments. People who are really into technology enjoy spending time with people who are really good. of course, many people don't seem to be as conscious as I am of the fact that the job market is very much larger than any one job... just keeping up with the next guy might not get me ahead much at this company (assuming I'm just keeping up, and not passing the guy) but if that guy I'm keeping up with is really good, I'm vastly improving my market value to another company that might not have the really good person already. Really, I think alternating between being the new guy and the expert is pretty good for your career development, if you can pull it off, and unless you are an extreme outlier in either direction, you should be able to do so; both terms are defined relative to the rest of the team.