Having seen this happen several times in my social circle over the past 5 years or so, there’s a high end talent pool you can tap with limited resources. I know a few folks maybe 5-10 years older than me (so mid to late 40’s) who have had impressive careers (e.g. their names are associated with popular industry techniques or otherwise recognised as heavyweight contributors) but are just burned out doing the same boring problems. Several have taken massive pay cuts to go work in tiny firms.
These folks by virtue of their commercial history can be useful in ways beyond just coding too - some of them can add a level of glitz, glam and respectability to your firm that you might struggle to figure out for yourself (they’ve seen it all before - they know what kinds of small firms are attractive to people with budgets in big firms).
You can get these folks for a song by:
1. Giving them something interesting to work on
2. Showing them that they won’t gradually be asked to take on BS assignments over time
3. Letting them take every friday to go fishing or whatever it is they do
These folks by virtue of their commercial history can be useful in ways beyond just coding too - some of them can add a level of glitz, glam and respectability to your firm that you might struggle to figure out for yourself (they’ve seen it all before - they know what kinds of small firms are attractive to people with budgets in big firms).
You can get these folks for a song by: