Programmer search engine • Hacker News Board

Re: Programmer search engine

#71

Post by eugenejen » Thu, Dec 03, 2009, 1:22 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #63

eugenejen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened to people who can write successful products but not yet been open sourced? This happened to John Carmack, Jamie Zawinski. They are probably too busy in making stuffs work then writing answers on Stack Overflow or committing code to GitHub.

Some people do both. Why gamble on someone who won't show any of his work when you can just pick someone who does?

Good point.

But if the code has copyrighted issues, then how can I show publicly? I usually have a copy of repository for my past projects and I don't mind to show it to people who interview me.

Also I think if I need to put code on GitHub, it has to be some software for more generic tasks.

Re: Programmer search engine

#72

Post by kgrin » Thu, Dec 03, 2009, 1:32 PM UTC

Aegean wrote: post #65

500$/week just to see some 900 CVs is a highly offensive price. He should have started low and increased the price gradually.

I've heard somewhere (possibly from Joel himself, to be fair) that it typically costs a company around half a year's salary to hire an employee (between recruiting costs, etc.) $500/week is a drop in a very large bucket for most employers - at least the kind that are doing active recruiting. They're probably spending way more than that just in personnel time to review resumes - and in fact, being able to filter a bit better by quality will save them that much more in the screener's time.

Re: Programmer search engine

#73

Post by kristiandupont » Thu, Dec 03, 2009, 1:43 PM UTC

KirinDave wrote: post #28

In the spirit of XKCD Explained: Joel Spolsky thinks we should all hire people who regularly use his software. He thinks those people are cool and he really likes how their time, effort and reputation on his site are something they can sell to recruiters for additional revenue. This is literally his dream come true.

The tone of your post seems condescending - I really hope that the high number of upvotes is not simply a reflection of how popular is it to dislike Joel.

I think his post is straight forward - this is a neat way to do specific searches for programmers. Programmers who use SO might or might not be cool, but they are now searchable.

Re: Programmer search engine

#74

Post by scotch_drinker » Thu, Dec 03, 2009, 1:55 PM UTC

nhashem wrote: post #4

I said it before and I'll say it again -- charging people looking for jobs is ridiculous. I don't know who the kid in Houston looking for an OCaml internship is, but how the heck does he have $100 to spend on this?

No matter how many times you say it doesn't make it right. Charging to look for average crappy jobs? Sure, that's ridiculous. Charging to essentially filter the jobs down to a subset with a high likelihood of being above average and excellent jobs? Well worth $100.

I can get a crappy job off Dice anytime and spending money to do it would be a waste. Spending $100 to have a chance at a great job where I'm actually happy? That's an investment likely to have pretty good returns.

Re: Programmer search engine

#75

Post by nickelplate » Thu, Dec 03, 2009, 2:08 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #63

eugenejen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened to people who can write successful products but not yet been open sourced? This happened to John Carmack, Jamie Zawinski. They are probably too busy in making stuffs work then writing answers on Stack Overflow or committing code to GitHub.

Some people do both. Why gamble on someone who won't show any of his work when you can just pick someone who does?

Some people are plenty mentally stimulated at work and don't feel the need to work on their own projects in their spare time. And sometimes your professional accomplishments are significant enough that a side project is not likely to make you a much more attractive candidate. The people who "do both" often don't fall in these categories.

Also a lot of companies don't want their employees to write code for anyone else and will actually see open source contributions as a major red flag.

Re: Programmer search engine

#76

Post by nuclear_eclipse » Thu, Dec 03, 2009, 2:08 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #70

breck wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of, I wonder how many millions an open HN job board could make? The people I'd like to hire are stackoverflow, github, and HN users.

PG can we please do this? We're looking to hire 15+ people right now and we are running out of good people in Toronto.

If you're willing to work with telecommuters, I'm still looking for a job, with no luck, in the Cincinnati area...

Re: Programmer search engine

#77

Post by Pistos2 » Thu, Dec 03, 2009, 2:42 PM UTC

Aegean wrote: post #65

500$/week just to see some 900 CVs is a highly offensive price. He should have started low and increased the price gradually.

I think this is one strategy. Start with a high price for something, then iterate lower to find the sweet spot -- particularly if your product is new or beta, and you deliberately want to limit your initial user base.

Re: Programmer search engine

#78

Post by liquidben » Thu, Dec 03, 2009, 3:45 PM UTC

kgrin wrote: post #72

Aegean wrote: post #65

500$/week just to see some 900 CVs is a highly offensive price. He should have started low and increased the price gradually.

I've heard somewhere (possibly from Joel himself, to be fair) that it typically costs a company around half a year's salary to hire an employee (between recruiting costs, etc.) $500/week is a drop in a very large bucket for most employers - at least the kind that are doing active recruiting. They're probably spending way more than that just in personnel time to review resumes - and in fact, being able to filter a bit…

I can't provide episode number, but I can concur anecdotally that this was discussed on the Stack Overflow podcast. It was probably at or around the debut of the jobs subdomain.

Re: Programmer search engine

#79

Post by byrneseyeview » Thu, Dec 03, 2009, 3:46 PM UTC

brown9-2 wrote: post #68

clutchski wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roughly how many points does a recruiter get?

I've heard 10% at my current company.

20% is standard. Companies with high standards will often pay more. (One company offered 50% for a very high-level position).

Re: Programmer search engine

#80

Post by KirinDave » Thu, Dec 03, 2009, 4:09 PM UTC

kristiandupont wrote: post #73

KirinDave wrote: post #28

In the spirit of XKCD Explained: Joel Spolsky thinks we should all hire people who regularly use his software. He thinks those people are cool and he really likes how their time, effort and reputation on his site are something they can sell to recruiters for additional revenue. This is literally his dream come true.

The tone of your post seems condescending - I really hope that the high number of upvotes is not simply a reflection of how popular is it to dislike Joel. I think his post is straight forward - this is a neat way to do specific searches for programmers. Programmers who use SO might or might not be cool, but they are now searchable.

If my tone is condescending, that's because it is. Don't you know how XKCD Explained works? ;)

I find it supremely unsurprising that Joel has decided to sell the user info he collects at the website he helped create. He is exactly that kind of person, who wouldn't see anything wrong with that. After all, it's his website and the privacy policy is clear, right? (sigh)

But honestly, I don't dislike Joel. I just am irritated by his disproportionate popularity. The man's writing is solid, but his technical and managerial insights are at best mediocre. This is in sharp contrast to someone like Paul Graham, who not only has the writing capabilities but also the background of technical and social achievement to back it up.