surrounded by lots of "green" co-workers who required significant hand-holding despite the fact that they too completed their small projects to get hired When

surrounded by lots of "green" co-workers who required significant hand-holding despite the fact that they too completed their small projects to get hired When I hear talk like this coming from devs in a given startup, it only confirms that their work culture is terrible. It doesn't make me think their devs are bad. It's more of the "rock star" and "ninja" wishlist stuff. No company-- not even Google, Apple, or Facebook-- is going to employ only developers who are all at the top of their field. If you're a startup, you must have a pathway to get your average programmers to greatness. When I hear stuff like "hand-holding" it makes me think of companies that hire based on keyword matching. They don't want to put anything at all into their employees, they just want the best output right away. No wonder these firms are always complaining about not being able to hire talent. They could develop talent, but they don't-- it's either getting the creme of the crop engineers (which they're not going to be able to get anyway since they can't compete with the above-mentioned companies on salary and benefits) or nothing! The really creative startups I'm seeing now are those that train. They know there's a war for talent, so they're willing to invest in somebody who isn't a rock star today, but has potential and very well may be tomorrow.