My lab actually did this for a bit. They hired a programmer who was retired but bored and just wanted to do something for far less than market rate. She was gre

My lab actually did this for a bit. They hired a programmer who was retired but bored and just wanted to do something for far less than market rate. She was great and got a lot done but two problems: 1) It took my boss significant effort keeping her busy with things to do: explaining the problems we needed solved, etc. is non-trivial 2) Since she was working for so little, she could basically dictate what she was or wasn't doing. The very fact that she wasn't on a real salary meant it was actually harder to work with her in some sense.