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VP of Engineering - "best of the best" = no more than 12 years experience?

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Re: VP of Engineering - "best of the best" = no more than 12 years experience?

#111
post #109
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been no longer than 3 months...

That's worse , it means you're running through them rather quickly....

My co-founder was previously the (only) VP of Engineering (and did a great job), but we mutually parted ways after the Series B. These things happen...

tl;dr, we are not "running through" them.

Re: VP of Engineering - "best of the best" = no more than 12 years experience?

#112
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

500friends founder/CEO here. Look at my team - 500friends.com/team. Most people are who you may consider to be "old." And we wouldn't be where we're at without them. We do not discriminate against age. What we meant is that we're looking for someone who has coded in the past decade. Someone that has been managing 1,000 people at Oracle may not be the right fit for a company of our stage. Make sense?

Hi Justin. It makes sense, but why didn't you say something more like that to begin with? Something like "Active development skills are part of the hiring criteria". You already mention doing Ruby development -- someone who hasn't coded in a decade, probably doesn't have much Ruby experience. It just seems odd that of all the possible ways to ask for what you describe above, you choose arguably the most offensive and…

You do have a point sir.

Re: VP of Engineering - "best of the best" = no more than 12 years experience?

#113
post #75

The reason for this is that if you haven't been coding (just managing) for 12+ years...you probably are not "hands-on" enough for a company of our stage. We have gotten a lot of very smart but "big company" people who had applied for this position. Sorry for the confusion however, most of our team is actually MUCH holder than the typical start-up: 500friends.com/team. We may be a lot of things but are definitely not…

I think I know what you mean, but really, there must be a much better way to express this. For instance, instead of being quantitative, be qualitative. Don't say, "no more than 12 years", but say something like, "but still be able to code your way out of complex, practical software problems." Or maybe "code your way out of FizzBuzz"... Whatever. Just don't put a numerical value on it, because it is 1) insulting to many, 2) legally questionable, and 3) unlikely to actually find what you're looking for.

Re: VP of Engineering - "best of the best" = no more than 12 years experience?

#114
post #74
post #70

Hey right over here everyone!!! This is called ageism. If you write code and you are over 35, you are toast. Yes even you the "above average coder"...done and done. Now wait till that immigration bill passes, make 150k? GOOD ___ing BYE.

If you write code and you are over 35, you are toast. In SV, maybe. Hopefully not so much elsewhere or I'm gonna have a hard time paying off my student loans...

D.C. area as well.

Re: VP of Engineering - "best of the best" = no more than 12 years experience?

#116
I had an interview like this at Willow Garage about 5 years ago. The interviewer said he would call at 8:30am. He called at 8:54 and sounded like he'd had about 2 hours of sleep. Then he said he had a 9:00 meeting and would call me back at 12:30pm. He called about 12:55 and proceeded with a lackluster interview during which he confused knowledge representation with graphics programming. Perversely, the interview made me want to join Willow just to see the train wreck in progress. (In their defense they have produced some good robotics platforms since then.)

Re: VP of Engineering - "best of the best" = no more than 12 years experience?

#117
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's worse , it means you're running through them rather quickly....

My co-founder was previously the (only) VP of Engineering (and did a great job), but we mutually parted ways after the Series B. These things happen... tl;dr, we are not "running through" them.

Your earliest press releases are from 2 years ago. How can you have lost that "only" VP of Engineering who as your co-founder was part of the team back then, be recruiting for the position a year ago, and be recruiting for the position now, but this time it is only been for the last 3 months ... well, I suppose you could have just not actively tried to fill the position during the gap, but that at least suggests it's not really that important. And why didn't you mention that?

Re: VP of Engineering - "best of the best" = no more than 12 years experience?

#118
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you edit much further: We want someone who has less than 12 years of MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE. The reason is that if you haven't been coding for 12+ years...you probably are not "hands-on" enough This arbitrary cutoff makes absolutely no sense. I'd like to see your quantification of skill drop off per year of management. If what you are wanting is a hands-on technical manager, then you need to say so. And it shou…

this has caused so many misinterpretations that I have edited it out of the post completely... But essentially, the ideal candidate was someone who was CODING 5-12 years ago...

you made the job ad look pretty bad now to people reading it with out knowning the first version...

   Note:
   Any notion that 500friends is ageist is a complete fabrication.  This can be validated by looking at our team (link). 
really? this is how you chose to start your job ad now? that sounds so desperate, i'd never apply - not saying that i would have before, sorry :)

Re: VP of Engineering - "best of the best" = no more than 12 years experience?

#119
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you edit much further: We want someone who has less than 12 years of MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE. The reason is that if you haven't been coding for 12+ years...you probably are not "hands-on" enough This arbitrary cutoff makes absolutely no sense. I'd like to see your quantification of skill drop off per year of management. If what you are wanting is a hands-on technical manager, then you need to say so. And it shou…

this has caused so many misinterpretations that I have edited it out of the post completely... But essentially, the ideal candidate was someone who was CODING 5-12 years ago...

Ahhh. That makes a helluva lot more sense.

Re: VP of Engineering - "best of the best" = no more than 12 years experience?

#120
post #94
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I didn't get the impression OP thought that he was too good to implement a linked list in JS. Rather, he was looking for a company that was too good to spend interview time on a question containing low signal. Like, the question itself is boring and cookie cutter. Why not implement a linked list or a tree in SQL (much more interesting for everyone)? Or a simple query language in JavaScript (a bit more practical)? Or…

You're missing the point of the linked list. A simple coding test like "program a linked list" during an interview is just a negative filter. Someone who can't write a linked list certainly is not a good programmer.
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