At my previous employer, we hired on a guy who was very close to earning his PhD in CS from a midwestern university known for a prestigious engineering program.

At my previous employer, we hired on a guy who was very close to earning his PhD in CS from a midwestern university known for a prestigious engineering program. I was excited because I thought that at the very least he would be able to learn quickly and start tackling problems relatively quickly. I was not disappointed. He was very assertive about not having his hand held wrt figuring out problems, and was proactive in learning new things. When I left to take another position, I felt comfortable that I was leaving the codebase in good hands.