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I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

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Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#201

Post by boplicity »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #159
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Dodged a bullet (booo on any company that would reject someone with this level of passion). Passion is a double-edged sword: When a person's passions align closely with the company's needs, it's wonderful. But if a person's passions conflict with what the founders want, the passion can amplify the conflict. That's why it's important to understand exactly what the candidate is passionate about. If they're passion…

> If they're passionate about helping the company wherever necessary, that's one thing. Why would anyone be passionate about any specific corporation? Sounds like a great way to be exploited. People are passionate about enjoyable activities such as programming, not companies. They help companies with their problems because they get paid for it.

> Why would anyone be passionate about any specific corporation?

Corporations are made of people, many of whom have a moral compass, and operate by that moral compass. If you believe in the mission of a company, the company is filled with people who also believe in that mission, and you're making real progress on that mission...then why wouldn't you be passionate?

Sure, you could be "exploited", but many people don't really care whether or not they're being exploited, if they're being treated well and doing meaningful work with people they like -- even more so if they're working towards a goal that can only be accomplished by a larger organization.

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#202

Post by 0xFACEFEED »

ironmagma wrote: post #191
0xFACEFEED wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look at the comment above mine: "booo on any company that". Some people will perceive his rejection as bad hiring practices on Codecademy's part. Every comeback story needs a bad guy that rejects or pushes down the hero before they rise. That's what makes this post interesting. It's certainly not the content; creating a web app of stitched together NPM packages isn't exactly a major challenge these days. Especia…

> Some people will perceive his rejection as bad hiring practices on Codecademy's part. FTR, I have no opinion for or against Codecademy. Whether it's a bad or good hiring practice depends on what you think of this guy. The information on whether any company hires or rejects a certain applicant is not a trade secret. If you read this and think, "this guy's a douchebag," then yes, the company looks sane and reasonable…

> they're just stating the facts

They're stating their projected version of the facts. It's the narrative as they see it. Important details could be missing.

Suppose you and I made a few attempts to start a company together and it didn't work out. Then I went off on my own as a solo founder and got seed funding. Then imagine I made a blog post titled "I tried to start a company with ironmagma 3 times and failed, so I became a solo founder instead and succeeded".

> Again, I have no horse in this race.

There's no race? Just commentary. It's an interesting discussion IMO.

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#204

Post by aflag »

m00x wrote: post #160
johnwheeler wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you don’t want to be rude? Really? Why just come in here to shit on the devs project? I saw your previous “constructive” criticism. Do you know how hard it is? How many fine details are involved in launching something? Please display some of your solo work, so we can see the merits of your valuable “feedback”

I definitely know how hard it is, I have 10 years of experience and I'm now staff eng and team lead at a 50B+ MC company. I had my own startup, and built many projects first-hand, but I'm not going to de-anonymize myself for the sake of argument. In my opinion, it should always be hard. OP had a good launch and delivered, which is something that's incredible and that only I also love the fact that he did this out of…

How much experience do you have with design, which was your criticism? More importantly, what objective characteristic of the design do you think is awful?

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#205

Post by andrew_ »

xtracto wrote: post #70
mtc010170 wrote: post #22

Way to be! It's silly how often employers overlook the "I just really want to be part of/build this" factor. People with that make for excellent teammates.

It's complicated. At my last startup (web application) I was in charge of hiring for the technical team. I've got an application from a guy who really really wanted to work there. But the truth is that he didn't have basic coding skills (in that, he couldn't do FizzBuzz level of coding). I really tried to get him in but in reality we would not have been able to put him in any position. I was sad because he sent the b…

If you're still measuring candidates with leetcode and fizzbuzz, I'm afraid you're part of the problem in with broken hiring in tech. I just hope the candidates you pass up trickle down my way.

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#206

Post by hellojason »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #188
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There have been studies that our typical interview process gives us 17% predictability of how they will perform, but if we do a contract-to-hire (of just one week) that improves to 80%. The pool of candidates interested in full-time jobs is not the same as the pool of candidates interested in doing contract-to-hire positions. Contract-to-hire selects for people with the ability to risk working for a company for a p…

So, you're agreeing that it works, then.

I think they were trying to convey the idea that not all very qualified candidates would even consider a contract-to-hire option. I know I wouldn't. That’s an unnecessary risk for me to take.

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#207

Post by andrew_ »

playpause wrote: post #119
officialchicken wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only possible situation here is "A-types hire A-types; B-types hire C-types". If a single applicant can replace your entire engineering team (which definitely happened in this case) why wouldn't you hire them to build a widget?

Haven’t you answered your own question? Because they don’t want to build the widget you want them to build. They want to replace your whole engineering team. What about hiring them to replace the whole engineering team, saving on salaries? Then you’re fucked when that person gets bored and leaves. Hyper passionate individuals don’t make good hires. They might make good founders though.

The number of presumptions in your reply is astounding. Based on replies and the blog post, OP clearly has projected the best of intentions. This is classic owning of a clown show hiring process and the hiring wing of Codecademy by the OP. I say "well done."

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#208

Post by andrew_ »

m00x wrote: post #160
johnwheeler wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you don’t want to be rude? Really? Why just come in here to shit on the devs project? I saw your previous “constructive” criticism. Do you know how hard it is? How many fine details are involved in launching something? Please display some of your solo work, so we can see the merits of your valuable “feedback”

I definitely know how hard it is, I have 10 years of experience and I'm now staff eng and team lead at a 50B+ MC company. I had my own startup, and built many projects first-hand, but I'm not going to de-anonymize myself for the sake of argument. In my opinion, it should always be hard. OP had a good launch and delivered, which is something that's incredible and that only I also love the fact that he did this out of…

Solid humblebrag there.

There are legions of engineers perusing HN that have double+ your experience sans the narcissism.

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#209

Post by madaxe_again »

type_enthusiast wrote: post #199
madaxe_again wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar sort of experience, although we had no turtle, so it was BASIC on the MICRO for us. 10 MODE 7 20 PRINT CHR$141”A text adventure” 30 PRINT CHR$141”A text adventure” May as well have been the opening bars of Beethoven’s 5th, for the infinite and incredible possibilities which followed. Anything. I could make anything . It was the most incredible sensation and realisation - and still is.

For me, it was QBasic under MS-DOS. SCREEN 13 is the start of endless possibilities! I think this kind of experience is missing for kids now – but I'd guess it's more about how ubiquitous computers are, and how there's a lot more between the kid and the computer. When a CLI is your interface, making even rudimentary graphics feels like achieving magic. When your interface is a cell phone or GUI, there's a much larger…

Totally. I mean, as ridiculous as it may seem, the thing that got me into Linux was seeing a printout of a screenshot of Enlightenment 15 and just going “what is that” - and for me, the idea that a GUI could be visually exciting was revelatory - I ended up wrapping my head around SuSE 4.2 on hardware it hated, getting E16 running (hey, it took me a while to figure out X, never mind anything else), and ended up learning C, C++ and Ruby because I wanted to make more of this unbelievably cool (in a very 90’s way) stuff.

Now… Great UIs are everywhere. You can just use them. You don’t need to poke under the hood, or learn the mechanics of CRTs, or compile a kernel and a zillion libraries to get them working - you just flip open your phone, or hit up the uri.

I think there’s something quite specific about having learned the trade through that cusp, that changing of worlds - if you started with punch cards and ended with dumb terminals, your world changed only somewhat, and always had a utilitarian edge to it - we went through that Bildungsroman of growth and explosive expansion as a natural function of our environment.

I feel somewhat blessed to have been born in possibly the most interesting time since Gutenberg wrote “hallo, welt”.

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#210

Post by ironmagma »

0xFACEFEED wrote: post #202
ironmagma wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people will perceive his rejection as bad hiring practices on Codecademy's part. FTR, I have no opinion for or against Codecademy. Whether it's a bad or good hiring practice depends on what you think of this guy. The information on whether any company hires or rejects a certain applicant is not a trade secret. If you read this and think, "this guy's a douchebag," then yes, the company looks sane and reasonable…

> they're just stating the facts They're stating their projected version of the facts. It's the narrative as they see it. Important details could be missing. Suppose you and I made a few attempts to start a company together and it didn't work out. Then I went off on my own as a solo founder and got seed funding. Then imagine I made a blog post titled "I tried to start a company with ironmagma 3 times and failed, so I…

Okay, but in that sense of projection, all stated facts are projected versions of the facts. In your opinion, should we just not discuss our experiences with companies at all, since the descriptions will be mere projections of what actually happened?
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