Hiring (Superstar) Programmers

Ross Turk wrote, "We've been looking for senior engineers to work on SourceForge.net for a while now, and it's been a lot more difficult than it was a few years ago. Has the tech market improved so much that working on a prominent website is no longer enough to attract the best talent? Is everyone else running into the same problems, or is it just here in the Valley and other high-tech corridors?" This is a question that I've seen coming in a lot; the economy has not picked up everywhere — so how are other people handling this? Going outside the traditional Valley/Route 128 corridors? Outsourcing? And how do you find people — beyond just using job boards? (Full disclosure: That's our job board thingie, as you probably have figured out.) Or do job boards alone work? Some people have been swearing up and down that CraigsList works — and there's always something to be said for nepotism.

Comments

Re:No reason to look outside U.S.

[Iron Condor]

Rather than look outside the U.S with the usual language barriers that ensue, look instead to the middle 90% of the country.

What language barriers? There's a billion English speakers in India (and, quite frankly, their English tends to be a lot better than what I keep seeing from the flyover states). There's more English speakers in China than in the US.

And contrary to Kentucky, there are actually smart and motivated people in India and China, who's goal in life is a modest amount of luxury in return for hard work.