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Ask HN: "Rockstar" job listings, yay or nay?

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Re: Ask HN: "Rockstar" job listings, yay or nay?

#11

Post by DanielBMarkham »

I think it's appropriate in terms of describing an attitude, but it is not so great at describing skills. "Ninja", "rockstar", "guru" and such tell me that they want somebody to show up who doesn't feel stress and is able to make the tough decisions needed to be made to make the thing happen. It also means you're willing to put up with a bit of cowboy mentality in return for exceptional performance.

Doesn't mean that the programmer is worth a damn. That's a different question. Confusion results when you confuse what's being said.

It also doesn't mean that a rockstar programmer is what you really need. But that's also a different question.

Re: Ask HN: "Rockstar" job listings, yay or nay?

#12

Post by bkrausz »

cageface wrote: post #3

I always groan when I see it in job listings. The handful of real "rockstar" programmers don't need to scan job boards. I'm guessing what you're likely to attract with this kind of post is a lot of arrogant code cowboys that don't play well with others.

Agreed...I don't immediately discount the company because everyone seems to do it, but I wish it would stop, since that does nothing to inform me of what kind of company I'm looking at.

Re: Ask HN: "Rockstar" job listings, yay or nay?

#14

Post by enneff »

andrewbadera wrote: post #7
snowbird122 wrote: post #6

Anyone here have advice for those non-technical people who know they need a great programmer on their team?

Get someone -- a friend, a consultant -- with domain knowledge and preferably hiring experience to help write your listing, screen and interview your candidates. Make sure your qualifications are spot-on, well-targeted and appropriately descriptive.

In addition to this good advice, make sure you give some indication of what makes your project interesting _to the programmer_. Only another good programmer can tell you what this is.

If it's not an interesting project, getting a good programmer to jump on it will be hard.

Re: Ask HN: "Rockstar" job listings, yay or nay?

#15

Post by st3fan »

I got a rockstar job offer from some time ago.

I responded to the recruiter to ask if drugs, groupies and obscene amounts of alcohol were involved. And also if I could destroy a hotel room or two.

I then explained to them that there is nothing rockstar about software development and that I would rather be approached in a more professional way.

I quickly got a followup email back from the recruiter's boss saying that they made up the rockstar bit and that the client had nothing to do with it. He did apologize and said he would love to have a serious talk.

Re: Ask HN: "Rockstar" job listings, yay or nay?

#17

Post by thesethings »

I wrote about it at length here: http://thesethings.posterous.com/rapping-grandmas-and-ninja-...

Short version: It was initially a helpful construct to suggest that:

* Your potential place of work was not stuffy. That the applicant could seek relief from their horrible bank job. (This signal is now false given that boring bank jobs say "rockstar." :D )

* The applicant will be respected and treated well (like a rockstar), not a codemonkey.

Nowadays, "rockstar" implies the applicant must be all-skilled, all-talented, with no burden on the potential place of work to live up to anything suggested by use of the word :)

Re: Ask HN: "Rockstar" job listings, yay or nay?

#18

Post by st3fan »

alexgartrell wrote: post #10

I think the alleged appeal of a job listed as being "for rockstars" is a certain amount of automatic respect once you get there. No one wants to go and be some day trader's or insurance adjuster's software lackey, so the idea of being the 'star' of the company is very appealing. The problem is that this is inherently completely bullshit. Most companies are driven by sales of a service or non-software product, which m…

"I think the alleged appeal of a job listed as being "for rockstars" is a certain amount of automatic respect once you get there. No one wants to go and be some day trader's or insurance adjuster's software lackey, so the idea of being the 'star' of the company is very appealing."

It does sound appealing. But then you quickly become part of crazy meetings, changing priorities, deadlines, 'agile' planning, dealing with other teams that are less rock-band-like and other stuff that gets in the way of rockstar habits.

Re: Ask HN: "Rockstar" job listings, yay or nay?

#20

Post by dman »

I personally find it to be slightly negative because a) The job ads where I initially saw it about 2-3 years ago were generally for rockstar interns ready to work in a microscopic paycheck. aka - everyone here at McFranchise is a manager but gets paid minimum wage. b) It is now used by companies like Intel. Any company who wants to hire a rockstar and insists on doing a background + drug test is not cool in my book.
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