[nickelplate]

"It isn't hard to find good software engineers."

I agree with this, even though I feel for the startups that are having a hard time finding people (because they're startups). When a company is struggling to find good developers it is usually because they fail to deliver on a number of fronts: quality job posting, good interviewing process, money, generous vacation time, good management, and then the actual work. On quality job postings... if you insist on looking for a rockstar, a ninja, or a samurai, you will miss out on talented people who are turned off by random displays of arrogance. This is especially true if you're not actually curing cancer or building a photorealistic renderer.