While recruiting, I always looked for two things - ability and culture-fit.
Ability is all about skills, knowledge, and relevant experience; but more importantly, the potential to learn new things easily and make a disproportionate impact.
Culture-fit is all about how well the engineer aligns with the company’s values and the team’s operating style and ethics. More importantly, I looked for “ease of working with” because team culture >>>>
and nobody wants to work with a genius jerk.