Some of the best team members I've ever worked with (as a Scrum Master) were what most would consider novice developers. Maybe I'm biased as a non-technologist, but I believe that the secret sauce to being an awesome Agilist lies in trust - if you also happen to be a bad ass programmer, that's a big bonus, but I've met way too many genius coders who suck big time as Agile team members. Feel free to chime in with other topics of interest on my new blog @moagile .