I think you're missing the premise of the article. It doesn't say don't hire qualified people based on a set of characteristics. The article brings up various e

I think you're missing the premise of the article. It doesn't say don't hire qualified people based on a set of characteristics. The article brings up various examples where people are totally confused about what those signals and characteristics of qualification actually are. Dress code, common taste in music, beer, literature, etc. are definitely not those characteristics. The article also doesn't say don't hire people you will get along with. You should try to hire such people but a workplace is a professional environment and not an extended family like some places like to paint themselves. First of all such places should be avoided because no workplace is an extended family and second because they are being unprofessional and exploitative if they pain themselves that way. The recent github fiasco is a good examples of what happens when people forget that workplaces are professional environments and github is actually one of the better places where work and life balance is highly valued. So yes if you're hiring a Rails developer then you should look for someone that understands Ruby and Rails but you shouldn't really care if they are a devout follower of the church of DHH because that has no bearing on their ability to do the job.