Welcome to our Spring 2012 edition of the Most Poachable Players in Tech, a list of the most fearless devs, designers and tech whizzes you should be clamoring to snap up for your company.

The talent on this list is exceptional. Need a full-scale mobile app ushered from concept to app store in 48 hours? We’ve got someone who can do that for you. How about a brazen product leader who’s dressed to kill? They’re on our list, too. Don’t say we never did anything for ya.

In burgeoning Silicon Alley, competition on both sides of hiring is fierce. New York is overrun with spirited young devs eager to flaunt their coding chops for a shot at the perks and the glory--oh, and the opportunity to create imaginative products that will make the world a better place, too. Startups are likewise jostling to grab the best talent without stepping on each others' toes. Sixty-four percent of the companies listed on Made in NYC are hiring, and while that percentage may be slightly down from last year’s 70 percent, that only makes the competition more interesting. "There's basically four jobs for every developer,” said Guy Zerega, sales director for Stack Exchange's Careers 2.0, at a recent event at Fog Creek Software's headquarters called "How to Hire Developers in a Competitive Market." Better stock up on four times the Perky Jerky.

Last year’s list of 20 poachables saw two people--Paul Berry, former Huffington Post CTO, and Rachel Fershleiser, former social media director at Bookish--move on from their positions following publication, but we think we can top that number with this list. Why spend your time at college career fairs or boozy Alley hotspots searching for your perfect tech match when you can just poach them from a competitor? After all, it’s much more fun that way.

So what are these companies looking for? "An engineer who is fantastic, who is well-connected, that's your star candidate,” said a recruiting manager at one prominent New York social media company. But it’s also likely that the candidate you want most isn’t just sitting at home browsing Github, but is already putting his skills to the test at another company. “Chances are your next hire already is working,” said the recruiting manager. “What we found over time is, it's the passive candidate that ends up being your next hire."

We've culled a list of some of the top tech talent out there through reader tips, word of mouth, and a close look at New York's tech talent. As we put it last year: Who’s really good, but working at a really bad company? Who are the allstars who could kick ass anywhere, any time, at any gig, and even be fun to be around? Who would we want to hire, if we had an infinite pot of gold? How likely is it they’ll leave? Are they bored, underpaid, or underutilized? And who is in line, or should be, to score a raise?

Whether they’re overachievers or under-recognized, we think this mix of fantastic folks, which spans from community managers to CTOs, are all hardworking hustlers ripe for the poaching.

Like last year, each Poachable also includes a “BPN,” or Ballpark Poachable Number, an attempt at gauging the candidate's market price. As the New York Observer's Foster Kamer explains:

It’s basically a glorified, informed guesstimate, or as we prefer to see it, what is commonly refer to as "suggested retail value."

So who are these mysterious masterminds, you're probably wondering? Click through the slideshow to check out the Poachables, and don’t forget to read up on the perks your company should incorporate before making them an offer. -Jessica Roy