A previous boss once said to me "I don't want to pay to train current engineers, I'm going to hire someone who knows X already". Experienced engineers who were

A previous boss once said to me "I don't want to pay to train current engineers, I'm going to hire someone who knows X already". Experienced engineers who were more than capable of learning something soon realized that their growth at company was limited b/c boss didn't see them as being different than their current state. So, if you are code Java now, boss thinks you are a "java engineer". People started to leave quickly. Experience shows what not to do more than it shows what to do. Imagine someone who "knows python" trying to build django, twisted or tornado w/out having general real world experience, domain experience or really understanding why those need to be built. That is a recipe for disaster. Smart, capable engineers are constantly reinventing themselves. If they feel they are not going to be given a chance to work on something interesting b/c they don't have X on their resume they will move on. The business will suffer as they take domain knowledge and experience with them. That boss is still at that company. Engineering staff has over 150% turnover in past 18 months (when above boss started). Most engineers have moved onto things that are much more glamorous and interesting but still say they would have preferred to stay there and work on that system. The company itself has slowly started to lose market share and customers are not renewing their contracts. A former clear #1 in the space has become a #3 or #4 at best. Those months watching this boss destroy this company are some of the best lessons I could ever learn...on what not to do and how not to do it.