I can only speak form myself of course, and from a UK perspective, but here are my 2 pence: Most seniors are either already employed, or are consulting/contract

I can only speak form myself of course, and from a UK perspective, but here are my 2 pence: Most seniors are either already employed, or are consulting/contracting. Those employed will need serious incentives to move. You can read that as "significantly higher pay and lower friction on entry". That excludes the 4 hour assignment - I would have declined you there and then. I simply don't have the time to give you 4 hours on a maybe basis. Those consulting (myself included) are even a higher barrier to breach - you are unlikely to match them in pay requirement. However, here's another option: hire a couple those consultants for 3 months, pay them whatever day rate they want, and have them level up all your juniors. You will then have the problem of retention of your less-junior staff. One other anecdote, which is a pet peeve of mine - I used the words Senior/Junior because you referred to it, but I have a dislike to those tags as it's vague to what they means. Junior/Senior in years? in experience? in talent? Some of the best people I've worked with had zero commercial experience when I met them and they blew me out the water with raw talent. P.S. If you do want to hire a top dev-ops consultant and don't mind him being remote, I know one who just became free and he won't be for long. My details are in my profile.