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Tools matter. @coffeegeek is right in that language choice is more of a signal for innovation and early adoption than it is a sign of competence or exciting problems, but would you join a team using COBOL today? If not, why not?

I have lost count of the number of jobs with 6 figure paychecks I turned down because there was no scope of programming in Scala. Sometimes being comfortable with your tools is important.

Agreed, but it might also serve as a signal of an engineering organization that is open to exploring different technologies that might be better suited for the problems at hand.

It's still up to the candidate/interviewer to determine whether that choice was a wise one, or whether they're trying to ride a wave of popularity of a specific language or framework.

Amen