[j_baker]

It doesn't surprise me that this happened at a university. They tend to view programmers as a neccessary evil rather than as a potentially valuable asset. Most likely, they didn't get anyone that would work for the salary they wanted to pay.

[henrikschroder]

KTH is the biggest technical university in Sweden, it's got a very good CS programme and all the other engineering programmes have at least some programming on their curriculums. It's definitely not a dinky little liberal arts college, there's no lack of technical knowledge overall. :-)

However, this job ad was posted only outside their little division, because.. well.. uh.. academics are narrow-minded?

If they had bothered to post it about four buildings away from their department, it would have been seen by about a thousand CS students instead, which would have increased their chances of getting someone good with quite a lot.

[gcheong]

I would say most companies who depend on software but don't see software products or services as their main thing tend to be this way.