&gt;There&#x27;s a strong thread of meritocracy in the tech community, but there is no such thing. When you choose the clearly better developer over the other, you&#x27;re often choosing the one who had better resources growing up, not just natural ability.<p>You&#x27;re using an overly restrictive definition of &quot;merit&quot;.  When you hire the best person for the job you&#x27;re hiring based on merit.  How they got there isn&#x27;t really that important from your perspective as an employer.  That&#x27;s a meritocracy.