> build an intern program I agree this is the best way to hire. Additional benefits are the chance to work on greenfield problems for low cost and creating lea

> build an intern program I agree this is the best way to hire. Additional benefits are the chance to work on greenfield problems for low cost and creating leadership opportunities for folks with a couple years of experience. The only downside I have seen with the intern-to-FTE path is a tendency to leave after a few years as an FTE. I never ran numbers, and didn't have the god-power to get the data anyways, but would guess that half the interns who came on as FTE's were gone within 5 years. It would have been particularly interesting to compare intern->FTE tenure versus college grad->FTE tenure. Thinking about it more, moving on after a few years of productive work is not that much of a downside. Much better than not moving on after years of non-productive "work".