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Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour
181–190 of 224 posts
Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour
#182oxide gives me hope for the future.
Agreed. Oxide, TigerBeetle and Zig.
Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just a gentle reminder that a company may portray itself as cool to customers, but is not cool to their own current or future employees. Their interview process was shady. There was a post here about 1-2 years ago that was a link to their interview process and how open and transparent they were. The post itself was from an employee and a fellow commenter who was gaslighting folks was also an employee. Several folks c…
I'm seeing the phrases "tremendous amount of homework", "substantial amount", and "few hours". Does anyone have an actual estimated time we can discuss?
Probably 16 hours all in between research, writing, and editing, spread over a week. That might be a bit more than average, since English is my second language, and I make many passes to make sure the text works.
Got boilerplate-rejected with zero human interaction three months later.
Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure what "mess" you're referring to -- that we have a writing-intensive hiring process? That we get a lot of applicants? That we therefore end up rejecting a bunch of people? That we read application materials thoroughly? That we don't provide specific feedback on individual applicants (even though we explicitly state that/why we don't)? To state clearly what I feel we have said many times: Yes, it's hard to…
I don't know Brian or anyone at Oxide, but for the record nearly every place I have ever passed an interview (and later enjoyed employment at) has had people complain about the process online. Partly I think that's down to nearly everyone having an imperfect interview process. It's hard to do right and you won't fail as a company because you passed on a good candidate. You optimize for rejecting the people that will…
Also even if one were to approach some theoretical perfect interview process there will always be people who feel miffed and complain
Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
I appreciate that our approach to compensation leaves some with overwhelming feelings of whataboutery, but no, we (of course?) do not have equal equity: as we have said (several times?) equity broadly compensates for risk -- and risk has gone down over time. (I used to tell people to "value the equity at zero"; I don't say that any longer because it plainly isn't.) In terms of the cap table: that's a bit of an odd re…
Some earnest, light feedback: to my ears, "kick butt" sounds about the same as one of those euphemistic substitutions for swears like "gosh we darn well try our darndest". It's just very funny to lead with that is all.
It's a Scott McNealy quote[0].
[0] https://www.information-age.com/mcnealy-and-ellison-usher-in...
Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oxide is literally the only company where I have found zero reasons why I would be unhappy to work there. I have listened to many, many podcasts, read RFDs… it always seems like a place I would thrive. To that end, I have applied twice in the last few years; unfortunately declined both times, but to be fair, the first time I didn’t know any Rust, and the second time, I was learning it. I will apply again at some poin…
I tried applying to Anthropic twice. Rejected. Then I see people with way less skill getting jobs there. Network with people at the company and third time may be a charm. Maybe.
Oxide's process is uniform, even the founders went through it, together, when they started the company. There is no internal referral system at all.
That doesn't mean this isn't bad advice overall, but it doesn't give you any structural leg-up with Oxide specifically.
Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour
#187I want Oxide to do so well. The product is a breath of fresh air in the era of cloud providers. As an engineer, I'd kill to get to work with their hardware. Not to mention that working at Oxide sounds like a modern Sun Microsystems with the ideology that team has. Highly recommend their podcast "Oxide and Friends", and their original "On The Metal" show. I've attempted to apply to their company multiple times over th…
Oxide certainly sounds cool. It reminds me of when I dealt with DEC gear back in the late 90s. That stuff felt more like "real computers" than any of the IBM PC-derived drek I'd worked with. Things were actually made to work together. Configurations were tested. Firmware was made for the integrated system and the system behaved like it was meant to work together instead of being the manifest behavior of all the edge…
The downside is that when you need to replace a DIMM or a storage drive or upgrade the network interface you have to buy certified compatible hardware from the manufacturer at 3x pricing instead of commodity items.
Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm seeing the phrases "tremendous amount of homework", "substantial amount", and "few hours". Does anyone have an actual estimated time we can discuss?
Probably 16 hours all in between research, writing, and editing, spread over a week. That might be a bit more than average, since English is my second language, and I make many passes to make sure the text works. Got boilerplate-rejected with zero human interaction three months later.
> three months later.
This is long for sure, but this is the guidance given on the Careers page:
> All candidates will receive a response, but this takes time: multiple Oxide employees review every candidate and their materials. We process applications in the order received, and so the length of time may vary. 4-6 weeks is pretty normal, but it can be longer than that for positions that are particularly oversubscribed. We'll try to give you a sense of how long it will take when you apply. This is generally the longest part of the process.
It is never something that is quick.
> with zero human interaction
This, on the other hand, is completely expected. As that page says
> If, based on your materials, we believe that there is a likely fit, we will work with you to schedule one-on-one conversations with people from across the company.
Everything is very front-loaded in the Oxide process. Hundreds (I left a long time ago at this point, could be thousands at this point, I dunno) of people submit materials, but the only conversations that happen are with the handful of people who are in final consideration. 99% of people don't ever do an in-person interview.
This has various pros and cons for candidates: for example, if you're very personable in person, but struggle with writing, the process is going to be hard on you. The counterpoint is that Oxide is specifically interested in people who can write well, because the written word is a huge part of the job. As an applicant, this structure is a pro because you will never get the "I did 10 interviews and then received a rejection" that can happen at companies that do multiple rounds of reviews: the vast majority of people don't make it past the first step, and there's a second and sometimes a third step, but that's it. The latency may be high, but the throughput is good.
Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
The particular 'mess' I've encountered was I applied (wrote 11 pages of interview material) on 2024/09/29 and then received a canned 'yeah whoops sorry for taking this long, not interested' on 2025/03/24. That's almost 6 months of delay from submission to first contact. Terrible process. You need to give feedback early if you're not interested in someone, not leave them hanging for nearly half a year.
Hah, oh no, if they (practically) ghosted q3k, then most of us have no chance.
I left Oxide a long time ago, I don't know about q3k's specific case (though I agree six months is a very long time), but it is just true from the numbers that it is very, very hard to get a job at Oxide. The number of applicants compared to the number of positions is a very intense ratio.
When I was there, there were often very tough decisions, where we had one opening, but five or even ten excellent final candidates. The math means that you are inherently turning down some excellent people.
Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Devils advocate (really not affiliated with oxide, but I have worked for a “desirable” employer before). How would you handle a few thousand applicants for a single role? I think no matter what you do it will feel inhumane, we can argue that a few hours of work for a take home test is inhumane too, being ghosted after doing one definitely wouldn’t pass my personal bar of acceptability, but if its the first stage and…
Communication is key. Think about a restaurant high in demand. There is implied communication that the initial experience might not be great in A) lines out the door, B) reservations are days/months out. Once you're in the door, service should be good/great. All companies have to do is just be more transparent. Ie, we have a backlog of 1000 applicants. Or just give a time expectation for the resume to be reviewed. Gh…
In this analogy, people submitting materials have walked up to the door and knocked. It is the first step of the process.
> Or just give a time expectation for the resume to be reviewed.
The standard time given is four to six weeks. I haven't worked there in a long time, so I can't speak to how true that currently is, but sometimes it does take longer than that. Just like the materials are a lot of work to produce, they are also a lot of work to read, and they're read by multiple people.