Sure but do you actually need the absolute best people around? An average company probably doesn't need exceptional developers. If you're not a tech company and you don't have an extremely challenging setup, your survival as a company doesn't rely on exceptional IT skills. You can do a lot with less than 10 virtual machines, any decent web app framework (Spring? Laravel?), and a version control system. Even apparently insane requirements are entirely reasonable: 100 thousands transactions per day is... 1 TPS. Make that 10 TPS to adjust for peaks. Unless you're doing extremely complex queries, you can definitely handle 10 TPS with reasonably limited resources.

Meanwhile, cargo culting and FOMO leads companies to adopt tech stacks, interview styles,... that make sense for FAANGs and other unicorns, but not for your average setup.

A business only makes sense if they're aiming to be better than others at a specific angle.

They need to get the very best for their particular thing that makes them different.

Other roles obviously don't matter as much.

Indeed. For tech companies and a few non-tech companies but with a strong tech environment (think HFT), IT is where you gain an edge on your competitors. Everywhere else, you win customers because of better prices, negotiating nice deals with suppliers, great salespeople and a good SEO presence, and so on, not because you use the latest Kubernetes version that finally introduces support for that sweet annotation you were looking for, or because you use Quarkus instead of Spring (or whatever).

This being HackerNews, I would have expected most people here work for a company that is aiming to disrupt the status quo through technology.

> Sure but do you actually need the absolute best people around?

No. You need a great _combination_ of people. Over my career I have seen teams assembled with “the best” folks to great fanfare an expense. Then, over and over they are schooled by a team that works great together. If there is one lesson for companies to learn in hiring/staffing/team building it’s this - focus on the team and the team’s results.

Yes, there are exceptions.

How do you hire for team fit when people leave, or change teams voluntarily or through reorgs?

I would put a slightly different twist on that. A team with diverse skills and a lot of mutual trust and respect will work wonders. My current group is what you might call "debug fire jumpers" (not 100% of the role, but a significant fraction of it). Knowing I can call in an expert in an area that I am fuzzy, and there is no judgement, and we can collaboratively solve the problem, is what enables the team to deliver. So I fully agree, building a team with mutual trust and respect is the first order of business.

All I can think of is the recruiters who cannot have the courtesy to tell the other 99% they are no longer under consideration.

Recruiters aren't paid to not recruit. Courtesy doesn't enter into it.

They get paid 30% of the salary of whoever they secure an offer for.

They act according to whatever they think befits their interests.