4 ms·

"Starfighter is a new, weird kind of recruiting company. We detect and market underpriced programming talent. We do that by creating opportunities for programme

"Starfighter is a new, weird kind of recruiting company. We detect and market underpriced programming talent. We do that by creating opportunities for programmers to casually and effectively demonstrate aptitude." Having a hard time parsing this. Do you find underpriced talent and help them get paid more?

aphextron 10y ago
Sounds like a brilliant business model, honestly. The world is brimming with brilliant programmers who are, for one reason or another, not able to reach their full potential due to outside constraints (third world countries, lack of tech investment, etc)
kbenson 10y ago
Presumably, if they are able to entice those people away from their current employment, they are offering something better, whether it be more money, more fulfilling (which can be for many reasons, such as being more challenging), or allows a better lifestyle. If nothing else, if gives those undervalued employees that have been identified a metric by which they, and their current employers, can judge their worth on the market.
tptacek 10y ago
Yes, that's the thesis. I mean, we're happy to represent anyone capable! But we're particularly interested in the people with no resumes.
pchristensen 10y ago
Susie works making crud apps for a boring insurance company. She is a brilliant programmer but due to where she lives, personal situations, she hasn't faced a challenge that lets her know the extent of her abilities, etc, she is working below her potential. Susie creates a novel solution to one of Stockfighter's games. Stockfighter uses that solution as evidence to present her to companpanies as a great engineer. She gets job offers for more money, challenge, and satisfaction than she currently has.
- bdavisx 10y ago
  Except according to an earlier posting from someone who went thru the process -- they didn't get a direct offer: they still had to go thru technical interviews. I thought a big point of this was that you could skip the BS technical interviews and prove yourself thru this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11433414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11433414 While it's a great service, this takes a lot away for people who are great programmers but might not be great technical interviewers.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    To be fair, regardless of where the lead was sourced, if I was responsible for hiring a new programmer, I would make damn sure I had an interview with them that contained at least a technical portion. It's irresponsible not to, I wouldn't be doing my job. If the new employee turns out to not be able to code their way out of a paper bag, I'm sure I would catch at least some of the flak. Trust but verify.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    We're just recruiters. We exert pressure where we can and get process breaks from most of our clients, but we're a tiny little company. Everyone gets interviewed. Nobody wants to eliminate tech job interviews more than I do.
- logicalmind 10y ago
  Is that really the problem though? In my circle, plenty of people are doing the boring crud apps at random big company. The problem is that they're paid very well. So taking a job that is more challenging often involves taking less money, for more risk, with a small possibility of a payoff. Is there really a surplus of highly interesting tech positions with better than average pay that are desperately looking for people? If you're struggling to find talent, you're probably not paying enough.
  - lazerwalker 10y ago
    tptacek, one of the Stockfigher founders, comes from the world of security consulting. That strikes me as exactly the right sort of niche: incredibly high-paying even relative to cushy crud apps, but there isn't really an obvious inroad for even an experienced programmer to make the shift over to doing security work. I'd imagine there are other specialized software engineering fields with similar problems.
jsprogrammer 10y ago
They classify players to a market price and alert on those who are currently paid less. Presumably, they then attempt to capture from the difference by recruiting CTF players to market players.

aphextron 10y ago

Sounds like a brilliant business model, honestly. The world is brimming with brilliant programmers who are, for one reason or another, not able to reach their full potential due to outside constraints (third world countries, lack of tech investment, etc)

kbenson 10y ago

Presumably, if they are able to entice those people away from their current employment, they are offering something better, whether it be more money, more fulfilling (which can be for many reasons, such as being more challenging), or allows a better lifestyle. If nothing else, if gives those undervalued employees that have been identified a metric by which they, and their current employers, can judge their worth on the market.

tptacek 10y ago

Yes, that's the thesis. I mean, we're happy to represent anyone capable! But we're particularly interested in the people with no resumes.

pchristensen 10y ago

Susie works making crud apps for a boring insurance company. She is a brilliant programmer but due to where she lives, personal situations, she hasn't faced a challenge that lets her know the extent of her abilities, etc, she is working below her potential. Susie creates a novel solution to one of Stockfighter's games. Stockfighter uses that solution as evidence to present her to companpanies as a great engineer. She gets job offers for more money, challenge, and satisfaction than she currently has.

bdavisx 10y ago
Except according to an earlier posting from someone who went thru the process -- they didn't get a direct offer: they still had to go thru technical interviews. I thought a big point of this was that you could skip the BS technical interviews and prove yourself thru this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11433414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11433414 While it's a great service, this takes a lot away for people who are great programmers but might not be great technical interviewers.
- kbenson 10y ago
  To be fair, regardless of where the lead was sourced, if I was responsible for hiring a new programmer, I would make damn sure I had an interview with them that contained at least a technical portion. It's irresponsible not to, I wouldn't be doing my job. If the new employee turns out to not be able to code their way out of a paper bag, I'm sure I would catch at least some of the flak. Trust but verify.
- tptacek 10y ago
  We're just recruiters. We exert pressure where we can and get process breaks from most of our clients, but we're a tiny little company. Everyone gets interviewed. Nobody wants to eliminate tech job interviews more than I do.
logicalmind 10y ago
Is that really the problem though? In my circle, plenty of people are doing the boring crud apps at random big company. The problem is that they're paid very well. So taking a job that is more challenging often involves taking less money, for more risk, with a small possibility of a payoff. Is there really a surplus of highly interesting tech positions with better than average pay that are desperately looking for people? If you're struggling to find talent, you're probably not paying enough.
- lazerwalker 10y ago
  tptacek, one of the Stockfigher founders, comes from the world of security consulting. That strikes me as exactly the right sort of niche: incredibly high-paying even relative to cushy crud apps, but there isn't really an obvious inroad for even an experienced programmer to make the shift over to doing security work. I'd imagine there are other specialized software engineering fields with similar problems.

jsprogrammer 10y ago

They classify players to a market price and alert on those who are currently paid less. Presumably, they then attempt to capture from the difference by recruiting CTF players to market players.