If you don't have name recognition driving candidates through the door, it can be shockingly difficult to get competent candidates. I'm talking basic senior eng

If you don't have name recognition driving candidates through the door, it can be shockingly difficult to get competent candidates. I'm talking basic senior engineer level (can be trusted to set up a web service from scratch without supervision). Most of the candidates you see either can't pass fizz buzz (no joke), are very junior (have no practical experience building real services), have severe behavioral problems (need to be told exactly what to do, can't be trusted to own a service, etc.), or are washed up enterprise technicians who need someone to build all their scaffolding for them and can't solve simple problems if there isn't an IDE for it (.NET/etc. lifer). The "smart" version of those archetypes often do OK at places like amazon, which provides scaffolding and oversite, but they will absolutely gut a small startup dev team. (source: personal experience regretting startup hires who seemed "ok" when we were desperate, who subsequently left a trail of sadness and surprises in their wake through inattention, stupidity, and general failure to care) I think this is particularly difficult for companies with non-technical founders that might lack strong technical leadership out the gate.