>If you need to wait YEARS to hire someone with some specific experience, I can guarantee that you really didn't need that person. You're doing this just to check some specific artificial goal that has little to do with the business.

There's a difference between "critically needing" and "would benefit from."

If you can find the specialist who's done what you're doing before at higher scale and help you avoid a lot of pain, it's awesome. If not, you keep on keeping on. But as long as you don't start spending too much on the search for that candidate, it's best to keep the door open.

> If you need to wait YEARS to hire someone with some specific experience, I can guarantee that you really didn't need that person.

I've worked in specialized fields where it takes YEARS for the right candidate to even start looking for jobs. You need to have the job listings up and ready.

This was extremely true when we were working on things that could not be done remote (literal physical devices that had to be worked on with special equipment in office).

Engineers aren't interchangeable cogs.

> I can guarantee that you really didn't need that person.

So what? There are many roles where we don't "need" someone, but if the right person is out there looking for a job we want to be ready to hire them.

> If you need to wait YEARS ...

Imagine working on voyager II .. or some old-ass banking software that still runs RPG (look it up, I'll wait), or trying to hire someone to do numerical analysis for the genesis of a format that supercedes IEEE float .. or .. whatever.

There are many applications for extremely specific skillsets out there. Suggesting otherwise is, in my opinion, clearly unwise

Exactly. Hire someone 80-90% there and invest in their training FFS.