Ultimately, in a business setting, those are the only two metrics that matter.
Selection is a management problem, and like many management problems the median level of understanding is primitive and often dysfunctional.
Not many businesses understand how many flavours developers are available in, nor how to match those flavours to the team/project roles they need at that time. So they robo-hire with standard CS whiteboard hazing, or interview for "cultural fit", or some other nonsense.
The hard-headed hiring question is always "Will this person make the business more money, and if so, how?"
This may sound like a recipe for a sweat shop, but it really isn't. There's a lot of possible variation in "how", which includes making smart architectural choices, having good team lead skills, raising the company profile through social presence, and so on.
The strongest possible code is always a good thing, but sometimes it's fine if it's eclipsed by other qualities. You're hiring a person with many possible skills, not a cog in a machine that you're planning to spin as fast as possible until it breaks.
It's up to management to work out how to get value from that. And there's a lot of creative potential in management that traditional work cultures overlook.
"Will buying this insurance make the business more money, and if so, how?" is a little more nuanced, since it requires consideration of risk, and dependent, unknown factors.
A bad developer subtracts business value.
Ultimately, in a business setting, those are the only two metrics that matter.
Selection is a management problem, and like many management problems the median level of understanding is primitive and often dysfunctional.
Not many businesses understand how many flavours developers are available in, nor how to match those flavours to the team/project roles they need at that time. So they robo-hire with standard CS whiteboard hazing, or interview for "cultural fit", or some other nonsense.
The hard-headed hiring question is always "Will this person make the business more money, and if so, how?"
This may sound like a recipe for a sweat shop, but it really isn't. There's a lot of possible variation in "how", which includes making smart architectural choices, having good team lead skills, raising the company profile through social presence, and so on.
The strongest possible code is always a good thing, but sometimes it's fine if it's eclipsed by other qualities. You're hiring a person with many possible skills, not a cog in a machine that you're planning to spin as fast as possible until it breaks.
It's up to management to work out how to get value from that. And there's a lot of creative potential in management that traditional work cultures overlook.