> I blame hiring managers more on this one. I have got calls saying "we need an excellent C++ developer but donno any further details" I'm not sure if I'm one

> I blame hiring managers more on this one. I have got calls saying "we need an excellent C++ developer but donno any further details" I'm not sure if I'm one of those hiring managers that you'd blame, but I can see recruiters hiring for my positions saying something similar. The reason for it is that I have very little in the way of specific technology requirements. I'm much more concerned with finding intelligent, inquisitive engineers that are willing to grow into whatever parts of the job they don't already have covered. I don't want engineers who limit the possible solutions to technologies they're familiar with...I want them to stay somewhat on top of what's going on in the industry and always be choosing the best technology to solve each problem they're given. Because of this, I'll have a few core technology requirements (usually language or platform, only because we have existing code that needs to be maintained) and then the rest of my requirements are around development philosophy. I need to feel comfortable that a new hire has embraced not just agile practices but the philosophy behind it. If they're not comfortable developing without a spec or they're comfortable producing something with insufficient test coverage, that will cause friction with the rest of the team. If they're uncomfortable doing their own devops work or being responsible for their code in production, they're likewise not a fit for my team. And lastly, the team is responsible for solving everything and a lot of developers have problems being vulnerable enough to ask the team for help. I don't want developers that get stuck and waste 2 days banging their head against the problem. But these kinds of requirements don't translate well to HR, so they get expressed similar to what you wrote. And it's not because they're not s well-thought-out on my part as the hiring manager, they're just more complex than "5 years of C++." Though even that has hidden complexity...I'll take the right 1 year of experience over the wrong 5 years.