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Ask HN: How should business guys go about finding great hackers for a startup?

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Re: Ask HN: How should business guys go about finding great hackers for a startup?

#21

Post by grandalf »

Are you funded? If you are, ask your angel/VC to get some recommendations for top people who can deliver in a startup environment.

What are you paying? Some people will work for options, others won't. Some people will work a 9 to 6 job but will refuse to do the high pressure always on call thing.

How much control do you (or anyone else in your company) wish to have about the technology choices -- what programming language, servers, SCM, etc. Some developers are quite opinionated on this stuff and so you have to be ready to sacrifice some control and to trust the developer's judgement.

I'd be wary of someone who obviously spends a ton of time primping his/her reputation in the community. Such people tend to be huge egos who are more excited about fame than they are about engineering. Better to get someone who truly loves technology. Lots of developers have a side project that they would love to work on full time -- check out github and if you find such a project that looks like your company could leverage it, send a message to the people working on it to discuss the project and your business....

Re: Ask HN: How should business guys go about finding great hackers for a startup?

#23

Post by joe_the_user »

It seems to me that someone with your resume would know how to proceed better than anyone else I could imagine.

I just realized that being a hacker hasn't necessarily made me an expert on hacker psychology since I haven't had to, uh, hire any.

So ... well there's a point somewhere

Re: Ask HN: How should business guys go about finding great hackers for a startup?

#25

Post by ananthrk »

mahmud wrote: post #13
fgimenez wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. With all the MBA bashing lately (more so on reddit), younger programmers like myself really begin to fear them like the plague. This is the first truly convincing argument as to why I would want to work with them. Heck, I couldn't see myself wanting to work without this treatment. Where do I sign up?

I'm looking for Common Lisp programmers with Hunchentoot, SBCL, JavaScript and nginx skills, and also graphic designers who can do excellent corporate branding and identity. It's for an online targeted ad delivery platform. The personal email is in my profile. I will try to be for you the boss I never had.

I will try to be for you the boss I never had.

:) :)

Re: Ask HN: How should business guys go about finding great hackers for a startup?

#28

Post by sokoloff »

Great hackers for the most part are not what you'd describe as humble. They're not arrogant pricks (necessarily), but they're appropriately proud of their skills. If you do find one that you'd describe as humble, it's vastly more likely that they're shy or just not that interested in bothering to open up to you.

If you set that aside and just want great hackers, as an outsider, the best you're going to be able to do is to talk to the people you know, who know great coders who might be tied to their positions at Amazon or Microsoft, but those guys invariably know others who aren't yet handcuffed to the stock packages, are underwater on their options and don't yet have families and huge mortgages, etc.

At the end of the day, it's about networking. You won't be able to personally judge precisely the technical abilities of a potential new hire; get tech experts to help you do that.

(Side note: I've also done most of what you described, with the exception of starting a non-tech company. It's not all that uncommon or special, so at the same time you're downplaying your search for a humble tech partner, you might want to work on your own a bit so as to not come across as arrogant MBA prick to your potential tech partner. Coming across that way won't turn off the truly hungry, but it will turn off the truly great.)

Re: Ask HN: How should business guys go about finding great hackers for a startup?

#29

Post by frossie »

octane wrote: post #16
mahmud wrote: post #2

You just took the first step. The second step is to figure out what you want to do. If you don't have ideas of your own, ask them to come forward with their own. Use hackers to find other hackers; too many times I found a guy or a gal with a good business brain between their ears, but things fell apart because they're surrounded with too many of their college buddies and frat-brothers who all want a cut in the deal.…

You make software engineers sound like children. We're adults. You embarrass me.

I find it sad that you think that only children should be well looked after. What should we do with adults, kick them in the teeth?

The comment you responded to made the valid point that unstressed secure people can offer you more. If you are not interested in more and just want enough, that is another issue.

Re: Ask HN: How should business guys go about finding great hackers for a startup?

#30

Post by abalashov »

rnugent wrote: post #8

First of all forget the "humble" requirment. Anyone that is senior and has crew knows what his value is and is not going to be impressed with a suit. Second, if you have a M$FT based idea then you're in the right place. If not you need to look at California. That's where the rest of the talent is. Lastly, avoid the offshore crowd. They will pick your pocket as sure as if you where there in person. There is no such th…

That's a load of crap. There's plenty of Linux & FOSS talent outside of California. I'm actually overwhelmed with how much of it is here in Atlanta, since I had a similar prejudice initially.
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