My partner and I are both programmers and I was recently tasked to hire our first employee. We have a certain ideal environment in mind that we would like to c

My partner and I are both programmers and I was recently tasked to hire our first employee. We have a certain ideal environment in mind that we would like to create for other programmers. In short, the plan is to hire the right people, trust them with their responsibilities and respect their freedom, time and space. We rely on our own past experience and other niceties straight from Peopleware. Some of the key criteria we want to go for are curiosity and interest in programming (what have you done in the past, what do you like about it, what's your next move, etc), problem solving ability (puzzle, maths, etc), autonomy (do you teach yourself, can you improvise, etc). Language choice and experience give some weight, but are not our primary interest. We believe it might provide the right ingredients for a well balanced culture within our team. But that's only one side of the coin. Somethings can't be ignored and during my exercise in finding the ideal hiring process for programmers, I was made aware of some legitimate concerns by HR people from various types of companies: - training someone involves losing money with the promise of seeing a diamond in a rough blossom into a jewel. Can you afford it? - programmers, especially Y generation, can be very unstable. You hire someone today and there's no guarantee that he'll be with you 6 months from now. But in your mind, you're grooming him for at least the next 3 or 4 years. - there are deadlines. sometimes you need somone right here and now that can land with wheels running. That means having to pass over some really nice resumes. - you have a small team and lots of work. Each needs to pull their own weight, there's no time holding newbies' hands. In my opinion, the ideal candidate for your company depends of your short and long term goals with him/her. If you're a startup, with only one product with dependencies on a framework and other tools that aren't likely to change much in the next couple of years, it makes much sense to hire someone already up to speed with said tools, even more so if you don't have the budget to train someone. If on the other hand you provide various services likely to span multiple horizons, betting on people that have the general ability to grasp this stuff is more appropriate. If you're google you can get the best from both worlds.