I definitely hire talent that can grow the business, and grow with it.

And that means knowing your 0's and 1's better than knowing how to operate the latest trendy calculator: it's easier to understand the calculator, when you know what it's made of; harder to work your way backwards, although doable.

Yes, finding people that master PostgreSQL clustering (and SLA/RTO tradeoffs) is harder than finding AWS-certified folks, but that deeper knowledge definitely pays off: you understand the tradeoffs why, before you migrate, not after. When you know the fundamentals, you learn their implementation way faster.

The "wildly used", locked-in services are more often than not, built with/over the "niche", no-strings-attached ones.