'A player' is another one of those obnoxious, means-nothing words like 'ninja' and 'rockstar'. In practice it means 'my kind of guy' - and someone acculturated to the same self-promotion ideology - more than it means anything about qualifications.
It's funny that EVERY company says it will be crippled unless it hires only people who are far above average. Because if developer quality is even close to normally distributed, about half of the actually employed population is below average (let alone top 1%).
Big companies, of course, need people with years of deep specialization. So if you aren't deemed to be "crushing it" in the top 1% and you don't have 10 years of experience in some extreme specialization - regardless of what you can actually do - you are COMPLETELY useless to the industry and will save your time if you just start mowing lawns and waiting tables.
I've worked at many large F500 companies, and trust me they can and do employ a much larger group of average and below average people, including developers. There are tons of people at F500s that if I brought them into a small startup, would KILL the startup because they simply can't produce.
Not sure what you actual work experience is but there are absolutely a range of skills/productivity/involvement. If you don't call them A/B/C or Ninjas or whatever, you have to call them something. Having worked with a wide range of folks, I have my preferences:)
It's funny that EVERY company says it will be crippled unless it hires only people who are far above average. Because if developer quality is even close to normally distributed, about half of the actually employed population is below average (let alone top 1%).
Big companies, of course, need people with years of deep specialization. So if you aren't deemed to be "crushing it" in the top 1% and you don't have 10 years of experience in some extreme specialization - regardless of what you can actually do - you are COMPLETELY useless to the industry and will save your time if you just start mowing lawns and waiting tables.