To me, much more important in that phrase is expectation who will you be working with. It's fantastic to be surrounded by smarter* people and keep learning, but at some level it's hard and if you like what you do, then this seems to be the most important thing about the job.
You have your basic financial needs covered when you're a decent coder, even boring projects can have great and interesting implementations, it all drops down to people who you are working with.
Also, not just in IT, true masters tend to be interesting people in my experience. More often than not, they have humility and curiosity that allowed them to get that far.
But of course it often tends to be an empty phrase. If they do hire top talent you are more likely to hear specific names rather than this phrase.
1. smarter / more experienced / more knowledgeable / sometimes even having your level of expertise but coming from a different background
You have your basic financial needs covered when you're a decent coder, even boring projects can have great and interesting implementations, it all drops down to people who you are working with.
Also, not just in IT, true masters tend to be interesting people in my experience. More often than not, they have humility and curiosity that allowed them to get that far.
But of course it often tends to be an empty phrase. If they do hire top talent you are more likely to hear specific names rather than this phrase.
1. smarter / more experienced / more knowledgeable / sometimes even having your level of expertise but coming from a different background