I would pass on them both. As desperate as you may be, you need to not give into it. If you hire either of these people, I suspect you will end up with a few we

I would pass on them both. As desperate as you may be, you need to not give into it. If you hire either of these people, I suspect you will end up with a few weeks of comfort before desperation sets in again, and now with an employee you don't want. This is a harder position than you are in now. So a little reasoning why I am put off by both: Candidate A has a huge ego. He knows enough about what he is good at to think that he knows enough to be good at everything. Whenever he finds he is mistaken, it will likely be very expensive to you, because he's more likely to go off into the weeds for months than ask someone else for the knowledge he is missing. You may get something brilliant on the other end, but the odds aren't wonderful that it solves the problem you have -- just the problem he thinks you have. Whatever impeccable domain knowledge he does have won't rub off of anyone else, because he's never talking to anyone else. You also run the risk of him becoming extremely bored and leaving. This sounds like a bad deal. Candidate B is everything candidate A is not, both good and bad; candidate B sounds like a doormat, but a friendly and gregarious one. He sounds like the typical career programmer: learns what they need to know to stay hired, but not much else; does what they need to do to stay hired, but not much else; and makes sure people would feel like they are firing a friend if they ever need to fire him. If all you need is someone to bang out acceptable code according to someone else's specification, and otherwise shut up and keep ideas outside of his specific title to himself (or just not have those ideas, since they're not his business anyway), this might be your guy. However, if you want someone who will be thinking and throwing around ideas outside of his specific set of duties, this candidate may be a drag on the team. One thing you didn't clarify in your definition of B: when he gives his input, does it contribute anything useful to the discussion? But yeah, neither sound wonderful. But which concerns are a bigger deal depends on what role the person will fill. It's probable that one or the other will look more attractive once you start thinking more specifically to the position being hired for, and less about the generic cookie cutter programming position.