You can ask for a developer who produce a large amount of average code. You can ask for a developer that produces very few terrible errors. You can ask for a develop who produces decent code and happens know domain X very well. You can ask for a developer who can mentor younger developers. You can ask for a developer who might needs virtually no supervision to succeed. And so-forth. They could all be different people. Perhaps you can sift until you somehow find someone who's all that but they'd be fool to join you because you're looking for perfection rather than looking for fulfill your actual needs.
Superlatives are a terrible way to make any kind of serious decision. Salespeople love specifically because they tend to be unmeasurable and irrelevant when they are measurable.
Thus the more superlatives are entering a decision process, the more you can tell you're sold shine rather than substance.
Exactly! What makes a great wife? Or a great friend?
What's a "great company to work for"? It's the company you want to keep working for. That's not going to be the same for every person - I have had great experiences at companies that are commonly known as "great companies to work for", but know coworkers that hated them.
What's a "great investment"? It's something you can sell for a lot more than you paid for it. Why can you sell it for more than you paid for it? Because the person you're selling it to also believes it's a "great investment", and so you have a circular definition.
What does it mean to "Make America Great Again"? Half the country believes we're doing it right now, and the other half believes we're in a bizarro throwback to the 1950s that isn't going to end well for anyone.
So what does it mean to recruit a "great developer"? Well, it's when you hire the person that you wanted to hire. Yes, it's subjective - it's always subjective. That doesn't mean it has no meaning, though, because people ascribe meaning to subjective qualities all the time.