It sounds like you may be looking for a very narrow band of skills. Awkwardly, people who are into systems administration were often there _because_ they didn't

It sounds like you may be looking for a very narrow band of skills. Awkwardly, people who are into systems administration were often there _because_ they didn't have to write code and people who were into coding were often there _because_ they didn't have to do systems administration. DevOps as a concept is only about 10 years old, and a lot fewer people were doing it towards the start. There just aren't that many really senior people out there. My recommendation would be to think about specific skills you would like to add to the team, rather than a generic skill level, and see if you can get creative about filling those. If you need platform expertise, can you pull from defense contractors & teach them the social norms of your company on the fly? If you need someone who can lead culture building, does that have to be the same person who has the deep platform expertise? If you really need all the things in one person, you need some reason why they'd want to work for you instead of Google. Which usually means either paying through the nose, or offering something about the culture that appeals to a niche audience. Having a particular point of view can be a winning strategy, rather than trying to appeal to everyone all at once.