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Ask YC: "Rock Star" Job Titles

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask YC: "Rock Star" Job Titles

#31

Post by wheels »

"Ninja" and "Rockstar" are just a dorky way of saying "We're looking for energetic, self-motivating high-achievers to work in a dynamic team on its way to the top!" In other words, nothing.

If I read an ad that was looking for an expert in graph theory, or genetic algorithms, or whatever, with a strong knowledge of C++ for a small team where there were still opportunities to be treated as a co-founder ... then we're getting somewhere.

The problem with "rock star" and "ninja" isn't just that they sound dumb, it's that they're usually just a way of saying, "We don't really know what we're looking for, but if you're a workaholic, it might be you."

Re: Ask YC: "Rock Star" Job Titles

#33

Post by nostrademons »

bjclark wrote: post #7

I totally agree 100%. If I see rockstar or ninja, I skip right past your ad. You want to get my attention? Tell me you're looking for a professional, and you're going to treat me like one. I want to know that I get 8 hours a week to work on opensource. I want to know that you're looking for craftsman, not ego maniacs. Mostly, I want to know that I'm not working with a group of people that saw the word rockstar and th…

I usually ignore almost all the text in a job ad, because the vast majority of them all say the same thing. You want my attention? Give me an interesting puzzle to solve.

Actually, I find that the coding questions a company gives you can say a lot about the company. I really liked FriendFeed's interview problems, even though I struggled with them, because I saw them and went "Wow, these two questions test for nearly everything you need to know about a candidate, and do so with really simple problem descriptions." That's elegance - doing a lot with a little. While with some company's problems, you gotta wonder why they bother.

(That applies to some of the interview questions I asked at my last employer...damn, I was an idiot. But nobody else was asking any coding questions.)

Re: Ask YC: "Rock Star" Job Titles

#36

Post by nostrademons »

ivankirigin wrote: post #15
bjclark wrote: post #7

I totally agree 100%. If I see rockstar or ninja, I skip right past your ad. You want to get my attention? Tell me you're looking for a professional, and you're going to treat me like one. I want to know that I get 8 hours a week to work on opensource. I want to know that you're looking for craftsman, not ego maniacs. Mostly, I want to know that I'm not working with a group of people that saw the word rockstar and th…

"I want to know that I get 8 hours a week to work on opensource" You wouldn't work at a closed source company? edit: i read 8-hours-a-day -- sorry. that is somewhat reasonable. The unreasonable side comes from the inability to create hours. You can only add work. Side projects are always additive, unless you can stop work on a core project to do the side project. That's often bad for business, unless you're Guido. Th…

Side projects don't have to be additive - they could be something that's on the critical path for your main product and yet not intricately tied to your proprietary code. The decision is not "Can employees spend 20% of their time working on open-source?", but "Can 20% of the code that we already have to write be open-sourced profitably." I suspect that for many companies, the brand-building benefits of open-source and its effect on attracting top developers more than makes up for the chance that someone will take your open-source code and build a competitor. (Particularly since the best candidates for open-sourcing are low-level commodity libraries that somebody will write anyway.)

Re: Ask YC: "Rock Star" Job Titles

#38

Post by wheels »

cstejerean wrote: post #21
ivankirigin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I want to know that I get 8 hours a week to work on opensource" You wouldn't work at a closed source company? edit: i read 8-hours-a-day -- sorry. that is somewhat reasonable. The unreasonable side comes from the inability to create hours. You can only add work. Side projects are always additive, unless you can stop work on a core project to do the side project. That's often bad for business, unless you're Guido. Th…

Any company that leverages open source software should make an effort to donate back to the community, even if the core of their software is closed source. Use Linux? Python? Emacs? Firefox? Allowing your employees to donate some time towards open source projects is probably a good way to attract talent. Advertising for "rockstar ninja" positions is not.

While I agree that it's a much better way to attract talent, I'm going to say (as an OSS contributor myself) that unless it's already significantly into its funding cycle, a startup where you've got time to spend on random OSS stuff that doesn't directly benefit the company is probably focusing on the wrong things.

Re: Ask YC: "Rock Star" Job Titles

#39

Post by ivankirigin »

nostrademons wrote: post #36
ivankirigin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I want to know that I get 8 hours a week to work on opensource" You wouldn't work at a closed source company? edit: i read 8-hours-a-day -- sorry. that is somewhat reasonable. The unreasonable side comes from the inability to create hours. You can only add work. Side projects are always additive, unless you can stop work on a core project to do the side project. That's often bad for business, unless you're Guido. Th…

Side projects don't have to be additive - they could be something that's on the critical path for your main product and yet not intricately tied to your proprietary code. The decision is not "Can employees spend 20% of their time working on open-source?", but "Can 20% of the code that we already have to write be open-sourced profitably." I suspect that for many companies, the brand-building benefits of open-source an…

You're right. My comment is directed only at true side projects, not real work that could be opens sourced.
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