Jeremy Miller tweeted this today which got me thinking. Jeremy’s comment was that being part of a small team mean that it mattered more. However i think that regardless of the team size or whether your a developer, a salesman, a business owner, you want an employee that will be committed to moving the business forward. A half interested developer will be bad for the entire team regardless of the size. For that matter any person not moving in the same direction of that team is not worth the hire, while just like Jeremy said it might be harsh but its just my opinion. 
Regardless of what the job is you want to find the most motivated individual. Sales people for example are motivated by great commission schemes. Interested Developers are generally motivated by good jobs and a great environment. Finding either a good job or a motivated developer is the hard bit. Simon Segal posted a while back about “Semi Invested Developers” and some ways to better understand the individual during the hiring process. If a developer was to have read his post in preparation for an interview and used some canned answers for those questions and managed to get hired he still shows more interest that one who has not bothered to take that step.
On a personal note I have reduced the number of hours I spent in front a computer since having my daughter (a time and energy vampire), however I have not lost my passion or motivation to better myself, and be a more interested developer. I find my self picking and choosing what tasks/technologies I will devote my attention to much more wisely, a skill that is very hard to acquire.
Just out of curiosity i created this poll to find out what people thought about hiring a half interested person /developer.
