One of the things I like about getting older is that you're old enough to see industries forget lessons they've already learned. A few years back I invested som

One of the things I like about getting older is that you're old enough to see industries forget lessons they've already learned. A few years back I invested some time reading the entirety of Joel Spolsky's blog, and because he writes so well, a lot of it stuck to memory. Back in 2006 he wrote "Finding Great Developers", and in it he says: "The great software developers, indeed, the best people in every field, are quite simply never on the market." This is as true as it gets. So, for most companies, they're not getting top talent. The best next thing is to get VERY, VERY CLEAR on the hiring end on what the job actually demands - and hire for that. Separately, and you can see it a lot on HN, there's a competitive element around being "talented" or "good". As in, "Oh, she's super talented", or "I'd like to be as talented as they are". To be fair, it's not unique to those who code, you can find it in every STEM department in every college, but it's nonsense all the same. Companies prize people who can get things done. And that ability is multi-faceted: it's not just about how good a developer someone is. How much they understand the domain, how much relevant experience they have, how good they are at mobilizing other people to work together on a solution, how capable they are at getting others around them unstuck, how well they can explain their ideas and discuss others' in a productive way...So much goes into this bucket of "getting things done".