Yep, absolutely. I’ve come up with the term “man on the mountain” for such positions.

It’s when one person is exceedingly talented at exactly one thing - but isn’t exactly a typical employee who is good or interested in doing much else other than keeping that one thing online and reliable.

Their job is to go live on their mountain for weeks or months at a time without so much as doing anything other than keeping their phone on and answering it within the first couple rings regardless of when called. If they are good at their job you likely don’t even need to call - they already know it’s broken before you do.

I’ve employed a few such folks over my career. They tend to be the “alternative” style candidate - exceptional people with exceptional flaws. They love the simple tradeoff.

That said of course this is ignoring bus factor and overly simplifying things. Typically this is one deep subject level matter expert who sits off on the side of a small team, so there is at least one “understudy” hanging around as well.

I still advocate for such positions when they make sense though. I would much rather in-house my own “insurance” vs overpay some giant company for each month only to find out the insurance didn’t exist when I needed to make a claim. It’s certainly more risk to my career - but I have very strong feelings that as a manager or executive my job is NOT to cover my own ass because it’s easier.