Seniority does not, in my experience, correlate with productivity. The programmer I most want to hire has the job title "intern", and he will be hired straight

Seniority does not, in my experience, correlate with productivity. The programmer I most want to hire has the job title "intern", and he will be hired straight into a major tech company at a princely salary. He'll be worth it, too. I've interviewed enough programmers to know that the average talent level is absurdly low. But there are amazing people out there, at every level of seniority, who do 5 times more work than average, and keep doing it. If you pay only a "little bit" more than market rates, you'll lose these people late in the hiring process, when they take an offer for 40% more at another company.