Most desired programming skills in a startup?
gojomo: (1) breadth of system/code understanding, so you can contribute anywhere needed.(2) consilience, which I will arbitrarily redefine here to mean being able to keep the overall goal/strategy in mind even as you work on every detail. Then, you know when to cut corners and when to spend effort on key differentiators. (Or more generally: able to manage yourself once you know the mission.)(3) speed, either because you've got such total mastery of some area that you can do expert work at an amazing rate, or because you can  immerse yourself in learning something new and race through demonstrable progress, niggling details and usual engineering detours/affectations be damned. (This is a variant of the PG "could you describe the person as an animal?" test.)