Top-tier devs just give you skill and experience; that in itself doesn't give you passion. What you consider an act of desperation, DuckDuckGo sees as an act o

Top-tier devs just give you skill and experience; that in itself doesn't give you passion. What you consider an act of desperation, DuckDuckGo sees as an act of passion and strong interest. If a skilled developer values his time more than his passion, perhaps that isn't a good fit for DuckDuckGo. Desperate people can apply, but they must be able to prove they have the technical capacity to deliver too. Which means they need to meet the calibre of developers who are in high demand, which means perhaps they aren't desperate? This process doesn't look much different to participating in an open source project in your own time, and then after your contributions have been assessed a decision/invitation extended to be part of the Core Team. Except that invitation is also an employment contract with a salary.