There seems to be evidence that this is, at least statistically, true. There will of course be good developers in the Midwest. But when you combine the draw of the valley, with the fact that most of the best developers got to where they are by the interactions they have with other developers. Add in that the best programmers are driven by their trade, and highly likely to move to where they can get the best, most challenging problems. I could easily see this to be true
Sounds like you live in a bubble. There are tons of great developers who'd never move to San Francisco (family, personal preference etc), and I can interact with other great developers without leaving my city ... additionally, doing startups isn't the only interesting programming work to be done :D
Then, when most developers are hired by personal reference, how do you expect us to find these amazing developers hiding in the Midwest?
Maybe relying only on personal reference is doing it wrong then ;)
> Maybe relying only on personal reference is doing it wrong then.
We try not to, but other forms of recruitment have thus far, returned less than stellar applicants. The only other luck we've had is actively seeking out people with projects in the same field. But that has mixed results also.
Sounds like you live in a bubble. There are tons of great developers who'd never move to San Francisco (family, personal preference etc), and I can interact with other great developers without leaving my city ... additionally, doing startups isn't the only interesting programming work to be done :D
Then, when most developers are hired by personal reference, how do you expect us to find these amazing developers hiding in the Midwest?
Maybe relying only on personal reference is doing it wrong then ;)