In the early years of my career I was the hot-shot developer that outproduced everyone. It was fun, but ultimately unrewarding. Some people don't mind but most

In the early years of my career I was the hot-shot developer that outproduced everyone. It was fun, but ultimately unrewarding. Some people don't mind but most people dislike others who are conspicuously better/faster than them. In a "team sport" like development, this was a bad strategy. Now the analogy I like to use is a rising tide raises all ships. Instead of being the individual hot-shot I do everything I can to make everyone else a hot-shot. If they are talking in a meeting and I think a nudge needs to be made, I just 1:1 message them with a tip and then let them say it instead of speaking up. I do more training of juniors and even seniors, teaching devs how to think through complex problems. Now my teams are more productive, most of the people like me and want to be working with me, and my income has skyrocketed as a result. Of course, I did have to escape from traditional office hierarchies and go into consulting to really increase the $.