Basically, if you’re going to hire smart people, you’re going to have to let them apply their skills to their work. Managers can advise, which they’re welcome to do, but they must be extremely careful to avoid having their “advice” interpreted as a command, since on any given technical issue it’s likely that management knows less than the workers in the trenches, especially, as I said, if you’re hiring good people. Developers want to be hired for their skills, and treated as experts, and allowed to make decisions within their own realm of expertise.

One thing that programmers don’t care about -- They don’t care about money, actually, unless you’re screwing up on the other things. If you start to hear complaints about salaries where you never heard them before, that’s usually a sign that people aren’t really loving their job. If potential new hires just won’t back down on their demands for outlandish salaries, you’re probably dealing with a case of people who are thinking, “Well, if it’s going to have to suck to go to work, at least I should be getting paid well.”