10 years of experience at a high-profile tech company in addition to numerous awards, and you want to turn him down? Do you have any idea how much job recruiters would bend over backwards to get a candidate like that? I have worked for myself, for startups, and at a bigger company - and I can attest that work does not differ much, except that startups pay crappy wages and demand crazy hours. Experience is experience - it does not matter if he was trained on the MS stack - I was too, and quickly became proficient in OSS, Mac, and mobile development.
I agree. Marcelo is a moron for turning down this guy. Although we don't run the MS stack, my startup would kill to have a guy like this to join.
It is completely laughable to me that this guy has to do a side project to prove he is worthy of a startup. Just have a few beers with him and talk over the problems you are working on and see if he has good ideas on how to solve them. If he does, you've got a hire. If he really needs hand holding (and seriously does an award winning guy like this need hand holding???) then say it isnt a good fit.
10 years of experience at a high-profile tech company in addition to numerous awards, and you want to turn him down? Do you have any idea how much job recruiters would bend over backwards to get a candidate like that? I have worked for myself, for startups, and at a bigger company - and I can attest that work does not differ much, except that startups pay crappy wages and demand crazy hours. Experience is experience - it does not matter if he was trained on the MS stack - I was too, and quickly became proficient in OSS, Mac, and mobile development.