Who would you pick if you had following two candidates: 1. A rockstar developer who wants work-life balance 2. Not famous but passionate junior developer who h

Who would you pick if you had following two candidates: 1. A rockstar developer who wants work-life balance 2. Not famous but passionate junior developer who has potential I would always pick 2 over 1. I know because I have made exactly that mistake of hiring #1. And the company culture went to shit. If I was the founder of that company and found out about this I would have a talk with OP and if there's disagreement I would rather let him go than trying to tone it down. Company culture is much more important than one or two rockstar developers. Also you don't attract great employees with a promise of work-life balance--you can only attract "good" employees that way. Great employees are attracted to passion. Go to Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and tons of other industry defining founders and ask them if they worked leisurely with work-life balance or ran around like a chicken with its head cut off.