As an in-the-code CTO that runs small teams, I've used Elixir/Phoenix quite successfully.
Hiring has never been an issue, in fact - Elixir was a tool to recruit a specific senior developer we wanted but couldn't pay them what they wanted due to budget. Elixir interest got them to come on board. I've trained a number JR developers with no prior experience with great success.
I was all in on Rails for over a decade, Elixir/Phoenix has definitely replaced that stack for me. I think it hits a sweet spot in terms of runtime performance and developer productivity. The latter is not something you can afford to ignore on small teams.
Same! I've had a lot of success training Python, Ruby, and JavaScript developers in Elixir and Phoenix. I've never had the "You can't find devs who know Elixir" problem that I occasionally see.
Hiring has never been an issue, in fact - Elixir was a tool to recruit a specific senior developer we wanted but couldn't pay them what they wanted due to budget. Elixir interest got them to come on board. I've trained a number JR developers with no prior experience with great success.
I was all in on Rails for over a decade, Elixir/Phoenix has definitely replaced that stack for me. I think it hits a sweet spot in terms of runtime performance and developer productivity. The latter is not something you can afford to ignore on small teams.