Your problem is: 1. Great senior devs are actually rare, so yeah, you won't just have them flowing into your applicant queue no matter who you are. 2. You're

Your problem is: 1. Great senior devs are actually rare, so yeah, you won't just have them flowing into your applicant queue no matter who you are. 2. You're not just looking for great senior devs, you're looking for great senior devs who hold certain ideological positions, which is going to narrow your pool much further. Lots and lots of senior devs have been through the OO design stuff and come out the other side. Like a lot of people, I read and used a ton of design patterns stuff back when I was working in Java around the turn of the century, and nowadays think of OO design as an antipattern to be avoided, with a strong preference toward functionally-oriented code. Same thing with the XP/agile stuff. Been there, done that, kept what worked and abandoned what didn't. I wouldn't want to apply for a place that had an ideological commitment to strong XP principles and thought of people with other opinions as being in need of "training up." And maybe you don't want people like me working for you; that's fine, you've got your vision of your OO/XP workplace and you don't want people who don't buy in fully. But don't be surprised when you can't find people who combine strong ability, a lot of experience, and a particular type of tech ideology.