They're junior. They might be very smart and have tons of potential, but they're junior and will take substantial time to season into skilled programmers. It's

They're junior. They might be very smart and have tons of potential, but they're junior and will take substantial time to season into skilled programmers. It's the classic salary vs. experience tradeoff: you pay less in salary and pay more in training and oversight until they become seasoned programmers. But if you choose to ignore the part where they've been coding for maybe 12 weeks, you're in for a world of hurt.