| The key here is to distinguish from the pedantic snobs from good developers. The pedantic snob will usually hold some extreme position about topics such as (1) obscure language minutia; (2) endless "framework building"; (3) premature optimization; or (4) mindless design "best practices". They will have high pride attached to whatever is it and they would add a flair of expertise to it, making you feel like you hired a genius. At the start, it looks like they are working on some super advanced wizardry, but you eventually find that they mostly waste time. On the other hand, the good developers care more about delivering value. The good developer will not waste time solving problems you don't have --thus slicing through your 90% problem like butter-- and at the same time will possess the sharp tools to solve the hard 10% problems your less than good developer is unable solve no matter the deadline. For option 1, you hire a good developer.
For option 2, you hire a snob. If you hire your average cheap engineer, you get option 0: he/she will eventually do OK for 90% of the problems, but the last 10% (which is often critical) will be a mess. |