Ask HN: Hiring “Jesus lovers” for your tech/science startup

As a former Israeli, a country where ultra-orthodox Jewish women work as developers and ask you to leave the door open as a sign of modesty or to keep the kitchen Kosher and where Jewish colleagues all leave for a prayer once or twice a day, I simply learned to live with that and look for the person behind the religiousness.

Some were great developers, some were not- the same as any other person, the only thing that would hole me back is someone that tries to force beliefs on me either explicitly or implicitly.

> Because if you went deeply enough into the "Jesus" problem you'd understand it's myth/story-telling

Yes, it is exactly like the marriage problem and some people still don't divorce.

Is believe in science also not a religion?

But besides that I have met some amazing geeks who are religious nuts too. Most don't talk about their religion at work. But some can get annoying.

This one guy would use weird jesus love us language during outage. It drove every focused on troubleshooting mad. Another guy decided he will convert me to Christianity. Loved long discussions with him. I might have turned a bit atheist though. But he started it. Atheism is also a religion in my view.

Another person I worked with turned out be extremely religious and racist on twitter. He was nicest guy at work. But once I saw his Twitter, I just felt repulsed by him especially racism. He quit eventually to start his own bible startup.

These are just extreme examples, most religious people never mentioned religion until I became their friends on facebook and saw they were Jesus lovers

A lot of people use religion for the community aspect of it, and branding themselves as "Jesus lover" is more about that rather than them being a strict follower of said religion and intolerant of differing opinions.

I would look past it and give the candidate a chance to prove themselves in an interview just like any other. If their resume shows a successful career at previous places, it's very likely they are able to separate religion and work thus their religious affiliation had no impact on their work.

>> the indications I get from those statements are that this individual ultimately hasn't progressed very far intellectually or challenged their beliefs strongly enough

That attitude is intolerant and toxic.

Would you really not consider a candidate because of their religious or political beliefs regardless of their other job qualifications?

In many places this type of discrimination is illegal.