We're a small company in a small town. When we go to hire, we can't afford software developers, period. We can't pay relocation even if they were willing to m

We're a small company in a small town. When we go to hire, we can't afford software developers, period. We can't pay relocation even if they were willing to move here. There's a local university, but we have yet to see a graduate of the C.S. program who was competent, willing to stay in town, and not already hired by one of the area's larger employers. We've made a couple of good hires, none of whom had significant programming experience. We look for people with analytical backgrounds: engineering or the hard sciences. They have to be capable of independent thought and interested in solving hard problems. That's what we have to offer as an employer: you get to do interesting work and live in a really nice town.