The first coder we hired didn't have directly on-point experience, and we ended up firing him six months later, telling him "you're unable to keep up the pace we need, which is a pace someone who directly knew this stuff wouldn't find too onerous." This was shocking and hurtful to the coder, difficult for us, and slowed us a lot at a critical time. Replacing him with good (not PhD rocket scientist quantum mechanicians) people with direct experience in their area gave us a huge speed boost.
