Live data from Hacker News

Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

open.nytimes.com

141–150 of 176 posts

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're hiring! You should apply! https://nytimes.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Tech/job/New-York-NY/S...

Any backend openings? I've been looking to move into frontend work more but don't think my experience is there yet.

I'm an engineer on our CMS team and as Albert mentioned we're currently seeking both back-end and front-end team members. We're not opposed to hiring skilled developers that don't have deep experience the specific language or frameworks we use. There's also always the option of joining the back-end and transitioning over time to a more front-end role. If you're interested, I'm happy to answer any questions or connect you to the hiring manager.

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#142
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all languages are created equal. While yes a developer with years of experience in python may have lots of transferable skills to other languages, my team arent going to hire someone for a mid level/senior position without a good knowledge of c++

May I ask, what's the company (and the particular team)?

Sorry, it was more of a hypothetical. I'm not involved in hiring for my current company and definitely don't speak on behalf of them.

I work in games on gameplay and engine code.

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C++ is somewhat of an outlier due to the sheer size of the spec(and getting bigger all the time). Not everyone will use the same subset of features either, which complicates things. That said, aren't you using C++ as a proxy for other needed skills though? Many Python programmers are not exposed to concepts like vtables, or they do not know how a linker works(or why it is even needed). Heck, many won't have done manu…

Even though most people won’t use everything, all c++ programmers will need to understand RAII, manual memory management, lifetimes, effects of inheritance and some* undefined behaviour. We’d probably take people with C experience, and maybe Some D or Rust, but really for a mid level C++ job we wouldn’t accept much less than C. Funny that you mention linkers, as they’re a bit of a minefield. Lots of the behaviour of…

I like your way of putting it, but I think those concepts (RAII etc) are fairly easily learned by a competent developer in any language. Most languages have analogous concepts if you use them long enough.

A shop that says it requires years of experience in a particular language is probably making their own hiring situation more difficult than they need to.

C++ for example is definitely a sharp language that takes some time to adjust to, and experience in C will help.

However: I think any competent programmer with a few years of experience would be able to gain basic proficiency in a month or two and probably daily-level-mastery in 6-12 months.

I say this as someone who had 10+ years in Java and only passive experience in C. I've managed to become mostly proficient in C++14 in about a month of full-time learning. After 10+ years of programming, I can pretty quickly adapt to the C++ way of thinking about things. I don't think I'm alone in this style of learning a language, and many hiring teams seem to agree.

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#144
post #36

I'd love to work for this engineering team. Their tech blog and github is full of interesting projects.

We're hiring! You should apply! https://nytimes.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Tech/job/New-York-NY/S...

Don't suppose you'd consider remote candidates?

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most hiring settings this isn't true though. Language-specific skills actually do matter, for all but entry-level positions at massive tech companies. It's not like my 3 years of experience in Ruby is immediately translatable to Java/Python/whatever. Could I get up to speed in those languages in due time? Sure. But if you were on a hiring committee, hiring for a team that works mostly with Java (or whatever) would…

> It's not like my 3 years of experience in Ruby is immediately translatable to Java/Python/whatever. It should be. Picking up language X is very easy for most values of X (more esoteric ones excluded). After you know a few (and the more diverse the set, the less new concepts you'll see), picking up a new one is quick. If it is something like Go, it's a weekend's worth. Using the language in idiomatic ways and knowin…

> But a new, experienced team member, with zero knowledge in the most used language in the team? Sure, why not?

It really depends on how much time you have to wait for a new hire to ramp up before they are useful. If you need immediate help, then hiring someone who doesn't even have experience with your programming language is a complete non-starter. If, on the other hand, you are hiring for the long term and can afford to pay a ~3-month tax for a good engineer for (hopefully) several years, then you are correct and the ramp-up cost becomes pretty insignificant. But don't make the mistake of thinking that this is an exception to the rule—what languages you know absolutely does matter to any company needing to get work done now.

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're hiring! You should apply! https://nytimes.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Tech/job/New-York-NY/S...

Don't suppose you'd consider remote candidates?

NYT is remote friendly, but most engineers are based in NYC. Wirecutter (https://thewirecutter.com/) is owned by The New York Times and is fully remote: https://nytimes.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Wirecutter

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#147
I've been watching this product for a while: https://www.nuclino.com/ it seems they too have built something really impressive on top of ProseMirror (it's a lot like Quip/Paper but more interesting). ProseMirror really feels like the only editor on top of which you can build an entire user experience and app.

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#148
post #100
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the BBC sounds like it has a really good tech team too. wonder what it is about newspapers that leads to this sort of tech culture.

A desire to stay relevant. Print publishers often get criticized for being behind the curve, but a few like NYT and BBC have invested heavily in the technology of their business. Not sure how much it's paid off, but my impression is they aren't struggling as much as some. I hope they manage to find the right combination to stay around, I loathe the dystopian future where Buzzfeed and Breitbart are the only news outle…

The BBC publish magazines but I wouldn't describe them as a print publisher.

They're a broadcaster.

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any backend openings? I've been looking to move into frontend work more but don't think my experience is there yet.

I'm an engineer on our CMS team and as Albert mentioned we're currently seeking both back-end and front-end team members. We're not opposed to hiring skilled developers that don't have deep experience the specific language or frameworks we use. There's also always the option of joining the back-end and transitioning over time to a more front-end role. If you're interested, I'm happy to answer any questions or connect…

A CMS team? Christ, no wonder NYTimes is losing money.

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any backend openings? I've been looking to move into frontend work more but don't think my experience is there yet.

I'm an engineer on our CMS team and as Albert mentioned we're currently seeking both back-end and front-end team members. We're not opposed to hiring skilled developers that don't have deep experience the specific language or frameworks we use. There's also always the option of joining the back-end and transitioning over time to a more front-end role. If you're interested, I'm happy to answer any questions or connect…

NYT seems remote friendly, but is NYT remote non-US friendly? Front-end/Full-stack engineer from The Netherlands here.
Post reply on HN