I find it interesting every time someone suggests we add paid coders to staff. It's a consideration board definitely has, and has had, but here's the thing: we're still struggling to build a structure that supports our volunteer staff. If you have suggestions for how we manage the overhead of having a---or several---paid staff I would love to hear them.

It's really not as simple as snapping up someone we give a paycheck, and I've yet to see anyone making the suggestion acknowledge that, despite it being related to a bevvy of issues explored in the very posts that tend to prompt that response.

At minimum, it's developing a process and policies for hiring that Board agrees on and that our staff can live with. It's laying the groundwork for someone to be available to train them on our systems and code, requiring extensive overhauls of documentation. It's a new set of training for our Finance team and Treasurer to manage payroll if we have a direct hire or independent contractor (actually the easiest solve since I have some experience there and am the current Treasurer). It's finding someone qualified and willing to provide supervision and mentoring. These are things we have distinctly struggled with, save for the finance issues, and publicly acknowledged repeatedly as issues we're working on and far from soliving.

In short, it's a great idea and one that's part of the vision for the org as we move forward, but far from a magic bullet.