Ask HN: Reasonable expectations for designers?

I've worked with and hired several graphic designers who all claimed to know HTML/CSS/JS. They have all produced beautiful .psds of their designs, and offered to help implement it.

However, without fail, when it comes to actual code, they disappoint. For example:

-They never know how to use any sort of source control (so I have to manually merge things together every night).

-Their Javascript is always spaghetti code, and demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of scoping, closures, the libraries they use, and the JS object system.

-They insist on going and modifying the .css files for libraries we're using. Often the CSS they write is repetitive and brittle.

Am I being unreasonable to hope my designer can both code and do graphic design? Should I be hiring a separate 'front end developer' to help implement the designer's vision? (I can do 'front end coding' myself, but have other things to attend to, which is why I need to 'outsource' some of it).

If these mythical creatures do exist - how can I find them?

(I'm a regular here but am just posting under a different account)

If front end work is important to your company and you want to invest in that competency I would suggest a little on the job training. I've been teaching myself a little more coding and the hard thing for designers is knowing what good code is. Design school training doesn't really get into many technical subjects, so sharing some websites, books, etc. with some of those ideas fleshed out would help a lot. If you can spare the time a code review would be another approach that could pay huge dividends over time. Imagine the situation was reversed, you knew how to use Photoshop passably, but were weak on aesthetics. What would you be looking for helpwise.

If it isn't so important, then I would hire a front end engineer and outsource design work. You can find passable designers easier than passable engineers, IME.