[kasey_junk]

I think people underestimate how hard it is to find good developers. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, experimenting with hiring processes, and hiring yet I still wouldn't trust my success rate very much.

The issue is that we don't have any objective measures as to what makes good software. This means that everything we do in the hiring space is subjective, which makes it really difficult to do rigorous study/improvement on.

That said, novice programmers even excellent ones are exponentially less valuable than experienced ones. But, the ratio of good developer to bad seems constant across experience levels.

In my mind the 2 biggest issues in finding good developers are: 1) the cost of novice developers. The market has driven demand so high that it is too costly to experiment/mentor young developers knowing that they will (and probably should) only provide 2 years of valuable work (1 year of uselessness and 2 of value in a 3 year hire). 2) the senseless ageism in our industry. The idea that older developers are somehow inflexible or out of touch just doesn't gel with my personal experience. The older developers who are still out developing are doing it because they enjoy it and keep up with new technology. If they didn't they would have left the profession a long time ago.

Unfortunately, this has led me to a policy of hiring a few more experienced developers instead of a more healthy mix of novice/experience. I know that makes me part of the problem but I can't afford to be otherwise.