[jmspring]

There are all sorts of people those that get their kicks on language selection and semantics, there are those that love to discuss process (agile, scrum, TDD, whatever), others that want to focus solely on delivery. Reality is, the best people are somewhere in the middle.

An engineer worth hiring is one that is bright, curious, and learns quickly. That said, they should also have an interest in some aspect of what you are producing. I, personally, have searched for jobs on the basis of esoteric / niche items, mainly hoping for something different. The most rewarding experiences have been where I've worked with/brought in good people and built cool things. One of those involved Windows Server and WinCE work, and I personally dislike working on Windows. But the overall project was interesting.

Technologies, languages, approach, and product. A good engineer who is interested will likely have deeper interests and help contribute in one of those four areas.