Hiring Mantra 2026 - Learning Rate Over Seniority

Hiring Mantra For 2026

Hire for learning rate & curiosity, not their seniority.

Its the algorithm I use when looking for talent:

1. Ignore the "Senior" label → It often just means "I have done this for 10 years." That experience is depreciating faster than ever.
2. Optimize for "learning rate" → Can this person pick up a new stack in a weekend? In the age of #ai, velocity of learning is the only sustainable edge.
3. Demand Curiosity → You want the person who asks "how does this LLM actually work?", not the one waiting for a ticket.

In other words:
Impact = (Curiosity * Learning Rate) + (Base Skills / AI Leverage)

This article was originally published on https://craftengineer.com/. It was written by a human and polished using grammar tools for clarity.
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