Of course developers should learn and improve. Nobody is arguing otherwise. Yes, people can improve, that doesn't change the fact that the average company employs average developers. If your company hires average developers, then you need to maintain your codebase complexity at a level that is manageable by average developers. All this talk about "bad hires" and such is really missing the mark here.
IMHO If the company hired you for your superiour knowledge and expects you to deliver. You should deliver. Its really not your problem they opened hiring for someone out of their league. Even worse if managers agree to your improvement plan.
Dont you think that someone before or after hiring of a real expert dev should check whether you really need that ?
They can always fire someone for being „too good” or like you say „decreasing own standards”.
Thankfully those experts sooner or later leave those medicore companies but they are not responsible for the mess that was left - its always the management that did not create clear expectations towards hires…
