Who Y Combinator Companies Want • Hacker News Board

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#81

Post by JustSomeNobody » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:02 PM UTC

throwaway456789 wrote: post #63

I'm an "enterprise" programmer because I write in Java... I'm also older than the average age of a start-up employee (late twenties). I've never written a line of Ruby, and I've never written object oriented JavaScript or used Node.js. However, I'm a really good programmer. I just happen to write the majority of my code in Java. If tomorrow we decided to use a new language, I could pick it up in a few days... I have…

I think age-ism is part of it.

However, being an Enterprise dev myself (kind of), I feel that Startups don't think Enterprise devs "move" fast enough. They are too busy abstracting things and trying to get to the holy grail of the "perfect" architecture. Startups don't necessarily care about that right away, but enterprise devs have been steeped in it.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#82

Post by pc86 » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

jonesb6 wrote: post #67

ryandrake wrote: post #8

> "We’ve seen that most engineers only have the stomach for a limited number of interviews. Investing time in the wrong companies carries a high opportunity cost." I suspect in addition to not having the "stomach" for an unlimited number of interviews, they don't have the vacation days to burn for them. Let's say you are working already and have 10 days a year vacation (pretty standard). With these ridiculous all-day…

Edit: What I really meant.. Poor choice of words on my part. Take it in this context: "Person X doesn't have a stomach for hard engineering problem Y". "Doesn't have the stomach for" now can be interpreted as a synonym for: * Is not capable of * Is not smart enough for * Is not hard working enough for (!) In the current environment I definitely shouldn't have brought up gender.

This kind of nonsense comment has got to stop. It's reaching the point of ridiculousness.

Edit: Was originally some kind of nonsense about the expression "doesn't have the stomach for" being "a jab at masculinity" or something.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#83

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #75

jonesb6 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: What I really meant.. Poor choice of words on my part. Take it in this context: "Person X doesn't have a stomach for hard engineering problem Y". "Doesn't have the stomach for" now can be interpreted as a synonym for: * Is not capable of * Is not smart enough for * Is not hard working enough for (!) In the current environment I definitely shouldn't have brought up gender.

I guess I've not seen that many westerns, but I really was not aware that the stomach was a gendered organ.

[deleted]

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#84

Post by sgarman » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

throwaway456789 wrote: post #63

I'm an "enterprise" programmer because I write in Java... I'm also older than the average age of a start-up employee (late twenties). I've never written a line of Ruby, and I've never written object oriented JavaScript or used Node.js. However, I'm a really good programmer. I just happen to write the majority of my code in Java. If tomorrow we decided to use a new language, I could pick it up in a few days... I have…

I think a lot of companies want to hire people who also have programming as a hobby. It seems if this was true it would be very unlikely that someone would be a seasoned great programmer who only ever programmed in one language. I'd be curious why this candidate never wanted to try other styles/approaches.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#85

Post by ammon » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

throwaway456789 wrote: post #63

I'm an "enterprise" programmer because I write in Java... I'm also older than the average age of a start-up employee (late twenties). I've never written a line of Ruby, and I've never written object oriented JavaScript or used Node.js. However, I'm a really good programmer. I just happen to write the majority of my code in Java. If tomorrow we decided to use a new language, I could pick it up in a few days... I have…

Author here. Ageism is real, and we'll be analyzing it in a future post. But in this case I don't think it's ageism. I think it's big-company-ism. Startups define themselves in opposition to big companies, and take signs of big company culture as strong negatives (which may or may not be justified statistically, I honestly don't know). But there are great programmers at big companies in any case, and startups should figure out how to hire them.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#86

Post by scarmig » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

s_kilk wrote: post #46

ryandrake wrote: post #8

> "We’ve seen that most engineers only have the stomach for a limited number of interviews. Investing time in the wrong companies carries a high opportunity cost." I suspect in addition to not having the "stomach" for an unlimited number of interviews, they don't have the vacation days to burn for them. Let's say you are working already and have 10 days a year vacation (pretty standard). With these ridiculous all-day…

>> have 10 days a year vacation (pretty standard) Wait, what? Is it really this bad in the States?

In my experience in the Bay Area, jobs fall into one of three categories:

1) No paid vacation at all

2) 15-25 days of vacation a year

3) "Unlimited vacation," which is usually a hip facade for 1 or 2.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#87

Post by ScottBurson » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

throwaway456789 wrote: post #63

I'm an "enterprise" programmer because I write in Java... I'm also older than the average age of a start-up employee (late twenties). I've never written a line of Ruby, and I've never written object oriented JavaScript or used Node.js. However, I'm a really good programmer. I just happen to write the majority of my code in Java. If tomorrow we decided to use a new language, I could pick it up in a few days... I have…

The first time I read your post I missed the parenthetical in the first paragraph, and was inclined to agree with you. Then I looked again and saw "(late twenties)", and had to laugh.

On the one hand, you're right, you can't learn everything. On the other, to be able to realistically claim that you can pick up new languages quickly, you should already know three or four different kinds of languages. If all you know is Java, you probably are farther away than you think from picking up a very different language like Ruby. I would encourage you to do some study on the side. Your late twenties is far too early to let yourself get pigeonholed.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#88

Post by alexwebb2 » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

throwaway456789 wrote: post #63

I'm an "enterprise" programmer because I write in Java... I'm also older than the average age of a start-up employee (late twenties). I've never written a line of Ruby, and I've never written object oriented JavaScript or used Node.js. However, I'm a really good programmer. I just happen to write the majority of my code in Java. If tomorrow we decided to use a new language, I could pick it up in a few days... I have…

Hiring manager here, and after many interviews with enterprise programmers, I do find myself putting more and more of them into the "no" pile right off the bat.

The problem is that those candidates, in my experience, tend to throw up way more red flags than others - their code is extremely verbose, they rattle off factory patterns like they're reading a textbook without any inkling what sort of problems they're actually solving, they parrot popular opinions without being able to articulate the reasoning behind them, they're not comfortable with developing a new feature without extensive documentation, and they miss the forest for the trees when it comes to things like testing and code organization.

Enterprise programmers usually leave me with the impression that they're heavily indoctrinated into one specific mode of thought, and that they would struggle to break out of it.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#89

Post by BinaryIdiot » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

aerovistae wrote: post #53

ryandrake wrote: post #8

> "We’ve seen that most engineers only have the stomach for a limited number of interviews. Investing time in the wrong companies carries a high opportunity cost." I suspect in addition to not having the "stomach" for an unlimited number of interviews, they don't have the vacation days to burn for them. Let's say you are working already and have 10 days a year vacation (pretty standard). With these ridiculous all-day…

Of course, if one plans things well, one has the leeway to leave one job and take a few weeks off before finding another...

Not everyone is comfortable with the unknown of not having a job lined up. Even the most technically skilled developers may not pass all of their interviews and some companies, especially the bigger ones, can take a huge amount of time.

What you say is true to a degree; if you have plenty of money saved up then you can spend a lot of time unemployed but this ultimately looks poorly on your resume at some companies and most people live closer to paycheck to paycheck than anything else.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#90

Post by sloanesturz » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

I would love to see this kind of analysis (i.e. Junior Programmer vs. Child Prodigy vs. Rusty + Experienced) as it applies to hiring women. Are there biases against women with different experience and different "culture fit?" Would be a neat way to apply your data and your company contacts.