18 ms·

Thank HN: From Google form to $1k in revenue in one month

1071 points by johnwheeler 10y ago

b_emery 10y ago
Simultaneously a great story and proof of the value of an 'experienced' coder. Looking forward to seeing how far this goes!
gregsadetsky 10y ago
Congrats! Small note, none of the listings appear when using uBlock Origin [ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa... ], a popular ad blocker. It seems related to your /js/ads-controller.js file (it gets blocked because of the "/js/ads-" portion in the path). I would suggest fixing that (and preferably minimizing your JS into one bundle).
- johnwheeler 10y ago
  Oh man - thank you. I was getting reports of the same, and now I know why. Fixed.
  - wavee 10y ago
    Still broken for me. Turns out I have div#ads filter enabled that comes from one of the uBlock 3rd party sources.
    - s_kilk 10y ago
      (To the OP) Maybe change "ads" to "posts" globally in the frontend? Adblockers are are always going to block anything called "ads", even if it's a legit component of your site
      - hakanderyal 10y ago
        Same for 'analytic', 'tracker' and related keywords.
      - pjc50 10y ago
        I suppose it's a philosophical question: if you go to a job ads site, and the adblocker blocks it, is that really unexpected behavior? :)
        majewsky 10y ago
        Well, you could also go to a job postings site. ;)
        sharemywin 10y ago
        That's one of those cases where you can be right and broke or cave.
- madeofpalk 10y ago
  This has bitten us in the backside before. We never understood why certain pull requests wouldn't load in Atlassian Stash/BitBucket Server - turns out our adblocker was blocking the page from loading due to having "ad" in the title.
  - tempestn 10y ago
    I've run into that as well. I'm amazed that popular ad blockers still do that, since it's obviously trivial to work around for actual ads, and will result in so many false positives.
    - megablast 10y ago
      They do it because it works.
      - connoredel 10y ago
        That's a hilarious comment, and a good point. But you can tell when your ad blocker is messing with site functionality beyond just blocking ads (i.e., the false positives your parent comment mentions). And at a certain point, this is a differentiator among the ad blockers.
- robbles 10y ago
  It's incredible that people put up with how buggy these adblocker extensions are. Seriously, blocking an arbitrary URL with "ads" in the path? Can't they just stick to blocking domain regexes instead of actually breaking the web?
  - endisukaj 10y ago
    The web is broken by all the intrusive ads. I don't mind breaking 1% of the pages I visit if that means blocking ads in 99% of the internet.
- codedokode 10y ago
  The one that should be fixed here is a buggy blocking plugin.
  - elliotec 10y ago
    uBlock is really good at blocking ads, and a lot of other things that aren't ads too.
- jbyers 10y ago
  This is a good reason to never prefix generated Javascript with hex hashes, at least without swapping out vowels. We rolled the dice one and had this happen on Wikispaces once; it was utterly infuriating to debug.
  - blaze33 10y ago
    Nice catch, never thought about it. Is it more problematic with preffixes (vs. suffixes etc.) or should we generally avoid any random string? Appending a hash to the script is very convenient to force the download of the new version of an asset (but maybe we have better solutions now, haven't considered this issue in a while).
    - imron 10y ago
      In your site's code, reference the asset in a path that includes the timestamp the asset file last changed. e.g. /js/1476929634/myscript.js instead of /js/myscript.js Then use your webserver to rewrite /js/<any number>/myscript.js to /js/myscript.js
      - Scaevolus 10y ago
        You can also do /js/myscript.js?v=1476929634 -- this generally works without any server-side changes. A CRC32 might work better, since controlling mtimes can be annoying.
        imron 10y ago
        You can, but that can cause issues with browser caching (http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2008/08/23/revving-filenames-dont-use-querystring/ http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2008/08/23/revving-filename...) and in any case I prefer the cleaner urls :-) Plus, once it's configured you never have to worry about it again.
      - e12e 10y ago
        Or just use a decimal hash, rather than hex? Eg in python3: import hashlib as h int(h.sha256(b" ").hexdigest(), 16) > 24725091799402603688614593151141908335745916334489781770578761787218146381928 h.sha256(b" ").hexdigest() > 36a9e7f1c95b82ffb99743e0c5c4ce95d83c9a430aac59f84ef3cbfab6145068 It's longer, but even a 256-hash isn't that long? (and sha1 would probably be fine, obviously)
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  If enough people use ad blockers I think they should just make ignoring files and divs with "ad" in their name part of the HTML specification.
  - messel 10y ago
    Hah! This is great. "Wait all descriptors containing the letters 'ad' are ignored?" "Madness." "This is HTML!"
    - dylanfw 10y ago
      > "Madness." Blocked by ad blocker.
      - adhdlimited 10y ago
        Haha..just my pint its freaking html
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- skrebbel 10y ago
  Ad blockers truly are the new virus scanners. They monitor everything that goes into and out of your computer and randomly break stuff just for kicks. And if that happens, it's somehow the fault of the software provider and not the ad blocker vendor. You can't test against ad blockers (or virus scanners) because the lists keep changing, so you end up applying ridiculous alchemy like not calling your API endpoints "/analysis" but "/computation" and then you just hope for the best. In the grand scheme of things, I agree that the people behind ad blockers are fighting the good fight, but in practice it's become a cat-and-mouse game of "who can break the internet the most". I don't know a solution.
  - spurgu 10y ago
    I don't use any ad blockers, instead I only use Ghostery, which seems to work in a lot more sane way.
- Kiro 10y ago
  And that's one of the reasons I don't use an ad blocker. Not even uBlock Origin, which receives all the praise, is reliable in that sense. I don't understand the crusade against people not using ad blockers by the way. I believe I have good reasons not to. Why do people seem to have a problem with that?
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    What "crusade?" I don't care if other people don't use ad blockers; in fact, it's probably to my benefit.
    - Kiro 10y ago
      I was getting downvoted before adding the second paragraph and it always happens when I say similar things.
- Torn 10y ago
  +1 for the minimizing into one bundle thing. Sets of assets are loading sequentially which is slowing page load down. Your code in each js file seems self-contained, so a simple in-order file concatenation into one .js file as a build step would help. gulp and gulp-concat would do it in a few lines of node, and you'd push the built output to your site. If you end up wrting so much script that a concatenation approach stops scaling, look into webpack and web modules.
K-Wall 10y ago
Awesome story! Just as a heads up with uBlock Origin in Chrome on macOS one is greeted with a header followed by a white page. Everything loaded with once I shut it off. http://i.imgur.com/Ovbi0ic.png http://i.imgur.com/Ovbi0ic.png
- alexdumitru 10y ago
  I noticed the same thing and the problem is the js file contains the word 'ads', which seems to be blacklisted in uBlock.
alexdumitru 10y ago
The jobs don't load with uBlock active.
- chinese_dan 10y ago
  Why should this site owner cater to someone using adblock software? If you want to see the jobs properly, add the domain to your white list.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    Why should this site owner cater to someone using adblock software? Because he's trying to make money and ignoring this problem may lose him users? It's not like he's actually showing regular web ads, so an ad-blocking user is as potentially profitable as any other.
nextos 10y ago
It's a lovely story. I bet there are tons of similar ideas that can succeed with a quick MVP and a bit of ingenuity.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  I tried to launch my e-commerce MVP with a Show HN but didn't get far. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12708181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12708181 Going to try resubmitting.
  - ambicapter 10y ago
    Yeah, but have you noticed a ton of articles on HN complaining about the problem that you fix? That's the difference here.
    - ikeboy 10y ago
      Now that I think about it, I've seen a bunch of complaints on HN about Amazon having fake goods for sale (most recently https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12743316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12743316, but it comes up pretty much every time there's an article remotely related to Amazon). Maybe I should mention something about how we're only sourcing from legitimate suppliers like retailers or direct from manufacturers, which might alleviate that issue. It's definitely not the main problem I'm trying to solve, which is the amount of time good deal-hunting takes. (Price comparison, coupons, taxes, plus around a dozen other considerations).
      - jmickey 10y ago
        I think it would be useful to give examples on how or where you your site finds an item at a price that I, presumably, was not able to find? It sounds sketchy. :) Also not sure if the whole workflow of your clients providing prices for items and then hoping your site delivers will work. How do I know the price I provided is realistic at all? If you already have the capability to find items cheaply, just list those items on your website and let people purchase them :)
jnevelson 10y ago
I'm not even the target market (too young), and this is my favorite job board already. Very fast to navigate around - speed IS a feature! Also love how granular the locations are.
elkhourygeorges 10y ago
Awesome!
Jugurtha 10y ago
Awesome.. I remember reading your first post and finding the idea neat but also saying in my head, with amusement: "right, everything is easy when your name is John Wheeler". Archibald.
- LyndsySimon 10y ago
  Everything is easy if you expect it to be, and act as if it's going to be. Lyndsy. :)
sparky_ 10y ago
I hadn't seen this site before, and I think it's a great idea. Though I'm young, I am certainly terrified about the trend of age discrimination in the valley - after all, we all age! I'm glad to folks trying to make a meaningful difference in the trend. Perhaps through good samaritans such as OP, those same twenty-somethings that reject so many qualified applicants on account of age will receive better treatment when they themselves reach 35 or 40.
- samfisher83 10y ago
  In 5 years there will be some new hot nodejs and then those current 20 year old will find the same thing and they will complain about the same thing. Oracle and Sap job pay pretty well and they are filled with old people (30+).
Jetroid 10y ago
Shrewd, this story is just going to bring more visitors. :-)
soared 10y ago
I thought I was on medium.com.. You need to add a call to action to the end of your post! Add a short line - "if you've experienced ageism checkout these job listsing at /link" or "to see what I built visit /link" or something similar. Lots of lazy people want to click a link at the end of your post to see your site rather than trying to find a link in your profile or scrolling all the way to the top. Plus when someone inevitably copies your content, you get a free link. I should make a site with marketing tips for devs...
- johnwheeler 10y ago
  Thanks for the solid. Done.
- ranit 10y ago
  > I should make a site with marketing tips for devs... Do it and don't forget to post it here. ... Seriously.
- j_s 10y ago
  http://devmarketing.xyz/ http://devmarketing.xyz/ by https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mijustin https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mijustin
  - soared 10y ago
    thanks for linking this. That makes me want to do it more actually.. Sites like that guys make me feel uncomfortable.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ebel 10y ago
made my day.
jxramos 10y ago
Glad to see things taking off via HN community. Keep up the good work.
mrlambchop 10y ago
Woah - did I miss the announcement that old is now 35 and above? Given the working range of professional engineers in the SF field, it sad that its not easier to invert the problem and build a Young-Fun-and-Full-of-Recent-Academic-Course-Material-Jobs.com.
- giancarlostoro 10y ago
  I don't think that age is old, I find I rather have people who are experienced more important than age. If you have skill, I could care less if you're 80, so long as you get results and share your insights. I've learned plenty from those who are developers for longer amounts of time than me. A real issue is targeting jobs for people who don't live in places that are known tech hubs. It took me knowing the right person to finally get a 'real job' in the field, and I only got it a few months ago (less than 2) I honestly don't know what I could of done otherwise, I've applied at a number of places and only ever got maybe one email back.
  - lucaspiller 10y ago
    This is just how recruiting works in tech, it's nothing about you personally. Knowing people is really the best way to get work in this industry even in the hubs. This is why code schools are so successful, unlike a traditional educational institute they are usually run by people who have worked in the industry, who will have the contacts to get you your first job.
- cialowicz 10y ago
  "The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) protects certain applicants and employees 40 years of age and older from discrimination on the basis of age in hiring, promotion, discharge, compensation, or terms, conditions or privileges of employment." [0] OldGeekJobs.com works since it's the reverse of this... essentially discriminating against younger candidates. It's not legal to discriminate against 40+ in the US. [0]: https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/agedisc https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/agedisc
  - 10y ago
mathattack 10y ago
One of the reasons I want to work on OldGeekJobs is because I’ve experienced ageism first-hand. I’m only 37 years old, but I was rejected by a startup of twenty somethings a few months back. Ahh - that first painful moment of, "Wait a second, I'm too young to be the victim of age discrimination!"
econnors 10y ago
I really like how the author posted the fake pricetag before spending time implementing payment processing - easy way to verify people will pay for it, low cost of experimentation. I've heard of other companies using similar strategies like a/b testing features that don't exist yet to figure out what they should build next. Congrats!
xn 10y ago
All new job listing sites should follow the lead of AngelList and StackOverflow, and include a salary field.
hyperknot 10y ago
Congrats for doing this and writing so honestly about it! But why only $1000? There are 134 "green" jobs * $50 which would be $6700. Or the Stripe integration was added that much later on?
- johnwheeler 10y ago
  Correct - When the direct link made the front page of HN and the jobs were free to post
mikemikemike 10y ago
I wonder if the problem is specific to ageism in individual contributor roles. I've worked at a few startups where maybe 1/3 of the product team was over 40, but I can only think of two coworkers over 40 who didn't have any direct reports. Do we find ourselves wondering why an individual hasn't "advanced" to a management position after 10+ years?
- pcsanwald 10y ago
  I don't ever wonder this when hiring. It's very common to see someone who tried management for a while and didn't like it or wasn't good at it, and have concluded that they love coding for a living. Technical management isn't for everyone, and isn't a natural progression from being a software engineer. The transition is very difficult for most people.
mgkimsal 10y ago
I wish folks like Bray had championed this cause 20 years ago. It may not have done much, but... it feels a bit weird to hear old people complain about discriminatory impact. I can't say he was a contributing factor to the ongoing 'youth culture', but... it wasn't hard to see this coming. My situation may be somewhat unique, in that I've had grey hair since I was 18. Not a HUGE amount at 18, but... people noticed. By the time I was in my mid 20s, it was definitely noticeable - more pepper than salt still, but noticeable. By 30... there's a fair amount of grey showing. Early 30s I've got people thinking I look good for being in my late 40s (had that more than a couple times). But when it came to interviewing and opportunities, I was already feeling the age stigma in my late 20s. "Not a cultural fit" - not even in silicon valley mind you. Had someone interviewing me - early 30s - said "well your resume only goes back about 12 years or so, what were you doing before that?" "High school". "Whoah..." - later found out he's assumed I was mid 40s. Could I dye my hair? Yeah, but.. it's a pain, and... other parts of me will get old too. Not worth it - want to get hired based on ability, etc. What's sad is to hear about the mid 30s folks wanting to get plastic surgery to look younger, which just validates and perpetuates the continuous youth culture. May not be possible to fight it at the Facebooks and Googles of the world, but it shouldn't be this bad...
- SystemOut 10y ago
  I can't comment on Facebook but at Google I see plenty of people in their mid 30s and beyond. I joined in my early 40s. Yeah, we hire a lot of new grads / younger folks (I interview a lot of new grads) but I haven't noticed any overt ageism in the groups I've been in. Plus, the people making the hire decision don't see the candidate anyways. You should/would most likely get called out by the hiring groups if you added in color/vague "cultural fit" references. This is just my experience, though.
  - duderific 10y ago
    Well, that's a huge company with many different types of engineers, and in business a long time (relatively). I would say the ageism is more likely at small startups that happen to have mostly young (in their 20s) engineers.
Lxr 10y ago
I love how simple and clean your site is, I would use it just because of that. Nice work!
rsp1984 10y ago
spent an hour putting up a Google form and static site on a cheap Digital Ocean instance. Now I feel like the Old Geek (I'm 32): What's the deal with Digital Ocean? If the website is static and receives content by manual copy-pasting from a Google sheet (as outlined in the article), why bother with Droplets and Storage and all the other configuration? Why is good old web hosting (the kind where you just upload your html/php/js via FTP and it all just works) not good enough for this? Really curious.
- BillinghamJ 10y ago
  Digital Ocean is just a simple VPS provider - I wouldn't even call it cloud. The usual cPanel PHP 5.4 shared hosting is consistently unreliable, insecure and a generally overall bad idea. Who would you actually even trust to run it?
  - billmalarky 10y ago
    Eh, DO is cloud. The instances are virtual and can be resized dynamically.
    - _joel 10y ago
      Not sure I follow that ontology as that doesn't necessarily make something a cloud. API's to interact with the ecosystem make it more like a cloud. Whilst I understand DO have API's, just saying the machine can be dynamically resized doesn't justify the cloud tag. Cloud doesn't need to be virtual, either.
      - billmalarky 10y ago
        To me, I think of cloud as a business term that describes infrastructure that can be easily manipulated with software (or dashboards). That's what DO provides albeit with WAY less functionality than AWS (but at a much lower price point).
    - elcct 10y ago
      Cloud is just someone else's computer, so you're right
JoblessWonder 10y ago
Great site! And thanks for taking my feedback in stride about the "tell people you heard it on oldgeekjobs.com" not being appropriate for the scraped jobs! The change (along with prioritizing paid ones) looks great!
life_is_short 10y ago
I found a bug. Job postings aren't sorted by date correctly. For example https://oldgeekjobs.com/jobs/California?page=2 https://oldgeekjobs.com/jobs/California?page=2 shows jobs posted '2 days ago' while the front page shows jobs posted '30 days ago'.
- stevesearer 10y ago
  It looks like it may be listing 'Old Geek Jobs' posts first and then the backfilled job posts from StackOverflow second.
  - life_is_short 10y ago
    Yeah, probably. Now I wonder which of the job posts are 'Old Geek Jobs', for old geeks, and which are not.
avip 10y ago
I don't get something - 37 is now considered "old"? Is this some kind of millenia neolang?
- krapp 10y ago
  Old begins at 20, now, maybe 25. Anything after 35 is old without even the benefit of plausible deniability. 40 and above, you might as well be dead.
the_watcher 10y ago
This is great. Great idea, and an extremely good example of building just an MVP and going from there.
quaffapint 10y ago
I just joined a new company and I feel a little reverse-ageism from my part. My team and most of the company employees are at a younger point in their life. After leaving a company where I could talk to people about kids the same age as mine and such, I find it all a little unnerving and uncomfortable. They've been fine and I imagine once I've been there awhile it will be ok, as I still have people outside of work to talk to, but it will take a little getting used to. Also - When I search for 'c#' it seems to filter out the '#'.
- hash-set 10y ago
  You're clearly not a cultural fit, then.
shostack 10y ago
What are your marketing/PR plans now that you've gotten a few major press hits? All too often people aren't ready for the buzz when it comes, and see a sharp spike that then falls off a cliff once the buzz dies down.
morganvachon 10y ago
Fantastic job and a great service! One thing: The linked article states that you started on October 15th, but the screenshots indicate you started September 15th.
- johnwheeler 10y ago
  Yikes! Honest mistake. Fixed
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
hash-set 10y ago
Here's the deal: Employers will exploit your age no matter how old you are. There is no "perfect age" for a developer. When you're young, they exploit you because you are inexperienced (especially at negotiation). When you are "old" they exploit by trying to play the age card. "Not a cultural fit"--LOL--fix your stupid culture and stop exploiting people, you smug fools! So what is there? A ten year "ripe" age range where you're good enough to code but don't have a wife and kids? Blatant exploitation of human capital. As far as "moving up to management" that's a load of crap. There aren't enough management positions to soak up all the age 35+ developers out there. It's an extremely narrow funnel. For the winners of that race, the prize is a lifetime of quiet suffering: You'll be lucky if you retire without major depression, anxiety, heart problems, or all three. I wonder what the mortality statistics are for people who work as IT managers? There is also this role called "architect." Do not be enticed. It is, at best, a torturous role, and at worst, it's a redundant role that people who were only so-so at coding get promoted to so they can no longer annoy the rest of the team. The effectiveness of any given architect has an exponential decay from the instant they stop coding and start attending meetings all day. Basically, you either keep coding and stay relevant or you go do something else completely. The rest is bs. But don't for a second imagine that companies aren't exploiting you by making you uneasy about your age or whatever else can be thrown in front of you to try and confuse, diminish, and lowball you.
- xedarius 10y ago
  This is 100% accurate in every aspect.
- reustle 10y ago
  > "Not a cultural fit"--LOL--fix your stupid culture and stop exploiting people, you smug fools! If you're hiring someone 15+ years older than the rest of your team, there are going to be some cultural differences.
  - LnxPrgr3 10y ago
    So? You're getting together to build things for money, not pounding back beers on the front porch and ranting about politics.
up_and_up 10y ago
Awesome work! As a 34 year-old I can't believe I am faced with impending discrimination, but I guess its true. Thanks from my future self!
- bognition 10y ago
  cheers mate, me too. Now get off my lawn
gggggggg 10y ago
Just a idea which I am sure would be easy given what you currently have, femalegeekjobs.com
- wavee 10y ago
  I don't think this should exist
  - gggggggg 10y ago
    I have to ask why? I have a team of male devs, and for my last hire really wanted a female for a different perspective and help balance the team, however only received 1 not ideal female application. At the end of the day, oldgeeks mean you are discriminating (filtering out the young), why should it not work on gender also? Its all just different levels of discrimination.
    - nibnib 10y ago
      > Its all just different levels of discrimination. Aren't some of those levels enforced legally?
- aethertron 10y ago
  Yeah. Suggestion for OP: register the domain and just mirror the exact same site content.
pjlegato 10y ago
Great, I love that this worked out! What's the purpose of backfilling jobs from StackOverflow -- is it just to make the site look less like a ghost town? Aren't those not necessarily old-geek friendly jobs?
- vanderreeah 10y ago
  I would like to know this too - how do you ensure you only pull old-geek-appropriate jobs from SO?
encore2097 10y ago
Awesome and congrats! how'd you make those sweet gif screen caps?
tracker1 10y ago
If there's an insistance on a fixed-width font for the site, I really wish it was something more like Consolas/Inconsolata etc... The job descriptions are nearly unreadable on my display, lighter gray, with a relatively thin font weight.
- johnwheeler 10y ago
  I'll try it out with different fonts. Never even thought of that!
  - tracker1 10y ago
    Thanks, I know it came across fairly snarky, and that wasn't my intent, it's just I had a lot of trouble actually reading the site. For reference, here's the fixed width family bootstrap is using... font-family:Menlo,Monaco,Consolas,"Liberation Mono","Courier New",monospace I'd add Inconsolata after Consolas...
jondubois 10y ago
It sounds like everything worked out perfectly for the author on that fateful day. What are the odds that a stranger saw the author's initial (unsuccessful) post in the HN 'new' section and decided to write a whole article about it, post it to HN (with a link to the original form) and that this new post made it to the front page... Then it crashed... But thankfully there was an HN moderator on that day who cared enough to edit the link to send users directly to this form. It sounds like the author made the most of it though, so I guess it's well deserved.
alpeb 10y ago
Love the concept and the site. Minor gripe though, that I also find in most job boards: searching for Scala also gets me all the entries with the word "scalable" in them :-(
anotherevan 10y ago
I was going to make a snarky comment regarding if this site is for old geeks, then the blog should have an RSS feed, but if you go from the article to the blog's home page the RSS feed is there. :-) Are you planning to open this up for areas outside the USA? (Australia here.)
CodeWriter23 10y ago
@johnwheeler: Their loss for not hiring you. I thought I was hot shit when I had 5 years under my belt, too, just like those whipper snappers. Took another 10 to recognize how full of shit that idea was. I think there's a certain niche that wants to hire experienced, disciplined and reliable "old" geeks like you (or actual old guys like me...still grinding code at 50). Looks like you're going to own it. Well played.
- messel 10y ago
  Totally agree, thought I was a solid engineer in my early-mid 20s. Had no idea how much I'd learn. I'm frightened by how much more I could learn now (42). I waste much less time, still make silly mistakes, but much less often.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  Can I ask what the difference is? What didn't you know?
  - marktangotango 10y ago
    Less is more, focus on results, not code. Two things off the top of my head. I just hired onto a subsidiary of a big corp, a cadre of 5 of started on the same day: 39, 41, 42, 45, and 55. Companies are paying top dollar for experience now, from what I'm seeing.
    - johnwheeler 10y ago
      >> Less is more, focus on results, not code. Two things off the top of my head. bingo. same here.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
santa_boy 10y ago
Wow thats cool! How are you actually getting end user views? Is it through the PR articles or do you have a plan in mind? What is a "faux price tag"? :-) .. how does it work?
- ge96 10y ago
  Don't quote me: seems from the context he just threw it on there to see if they would still use it. Which they did. So he actually setup stripe to accept money. That's what I inferred anyway.
dbdoug 10y ago
FWIW, I just turned 70 and I'm still being offered more coding work than I want. It is VBA, though :)
- cdubzzz 10y ago
  This I like to hear. Hopefully LAMP will be the VBA of my seventies (:
ge96 10y ago
Once you grew/adapted to the growth is that $1000/mo still profit or overall earnings? Awesme btw posts like these inspire me, damn what is the next problem to solve.
RikNieu 10y ago
I started a new career as a front-end developer at the age of 33(last year), so I have my age and lack of experience counting against me. I must say, I do worry about my future prospects a lot. Hopefully sites like this can throw a bone to us old dogs out there.
- khnd 10y ago
  yikes old dog at 33.
- nul_byte 10y ago
  Honestly, as long as you stay hungry to learn, there is a high chance you will be fine. This has always worked for me.
sparrish 10y ago
If you really want us old geeks to use it, you need a command line interface.
drieddust 10y ago
Thanks for sharing this. If not finest then quickest example of idea -> MVP -> Product I have seen so far. I applaud you for the brave decision of putting it out there. On the contrary, I always end up planning endlessly. Evaluating the best framework, best UI, best architecture and actually end of doing nothing.
tudorconstantin 10y ago
Idea to make even more money (if you get billionaire on it, please make me a millionaire also :) ): there are services that post jobs to multiple job boards. Create an API they could hook your site in easily and offer them a 20$ discount, so they can offer your service to their customers for 40$ and can also win a 10$/job posted to you. Examples of such sites that come to mind are ziprecruiter.com and broadbean.com
exlurker 10y ago
I like the simplicity of the site! But how about some more contrast on the body text. For us old geeks, you know.
dannylandau 10y ago
Don't get it, how do you know that age discrimination is not at play with the jobs listed on your site?
- icebraining 10y ago
  Self-selection. Why bother paying to post a job on a site called OldGeekJobs if you won't accept old geeks as applicants?
fm328 10y ago
congratz and great work!
Annatar 10y ago
What about reverse job postings, where old people could post what they can do, and where they want to work?
xupybd 10y ago
Any chance of opening this up to other countries?
adolfoabegg 10y ago
Congrats John! this is perfect example of how ideas should be tested and developed. Loved the story!
madshiva 10y ago
Great! Congrats! I'm 33 and I start to feel old too when applying to some jobs and when I see what you did this boost my motivation too! don't stop!
b212 10y ago
Can you do another good deed and require your posters to include salary range in their job ads? It's the norm in the UK and we successfully forced this in Poland (though posters almost NEVER post salaries here). How? The companies need IT staff so much that almost all IT job boards (at least the most popular ones - like FB groups or https://nofluffjobs.com https://nofluffjobs.com) started requiring the salary range. I think your idea is praiseworthy, but I'd never ever create a website like this with hidden salaries. Especially in your case - it's so cool people post jobs on your board, but what if they do so, because they're offering 10, 20, 40% less because it's a place for "old geeks that noone wants"? I'm really super proud that if a IT ad in Poland has no salary range most of us just ignore it. And it took us maybe 2 years to get to this place. I think every other country should follow the lead and end the "competitive salary" trend. I don't want to spend 3 days on interviews just to discover that the salary offered is way too low for me. Salary missing from an ad is a big lack of respect, the sooner people realize that the better.
- tracker1 10y ago
  I will usually just flat out ask up front.. and if it's a cagey response, I'll kindly decline.
  - goatherders 10y ago
    I usually decline to interview people that ask my recruiter too early about salary. We work hard to post very clear job descriptions and requirements so if you read it and apply and get through the initial screening, then that's a pretty good indicator that we are in range on salary even if we've never discussed it.
    - Benjamin_Dobell 10y ago
      Undoubtedly you're turning away the best candidates and almost exclusively interviewing candidates whom have extreme difficulty finding work elsewhere; so much so that the applicants value their own time so poorly that they believe it worthwhile to interview for a job which may not meet their personal financial requirements. I'd strongly suggest you change your practices and observe the improved calibre of interviewees. EDIT: Also, if you really want good candidates, stop using a recruiter.
jwmoz 10y ago
Shameless plug: UK CONTRACTOR web jobs here http://weworkcontract.com http://weworkcontract.com
happy-go-lucky 10y ago
On one hand, I'm getting older. On the other, my skills are getting better. The younger people I work with can't keep pace with me. And, my employers aren't unaware of the fact that it indeed is a zero-sum game, so my age (early 40ies) has never been an issue so far. I believe there're and will be many employers who look at nothing but what you bring to the table. As a businessman, you wouldn't be foolish enough to hire only noobs.
radious 10y ago
I think this a great idea but why would anyone pay for posting an ad? There're many free-to-post sites already.
sharemywin 10y ago
I think your definitely on to something. I can't wait to see how far you take it.
JonoBB 10y ago
Well done and nicely executed! That early "Hacker News Effect" really got you off to a roll, and you made the most of it. Have you ever thought what would have happened if that Wordpress write-up was not created, or didn't get such a good response on HN?
mountaineer22 10y ago
Excellent job. It is great to see the birth of an idea and watch it grow. Thank you for sharing with us. It is greatly appreciated.
Lord_Zero 10y ago
What I really like about this is how the interface is so dead simple. It could be the Craigslist of job postings with the $50 barrier to entry to filter out shitty posts. My advice is to not overdo it with features and KISS.
drdoom 10y ago
Congratulations on seeing the opportunity and quickly moving to do something about it. It is unique enough at first sight that you got early coverage in the press, which is very helpful. Quick question: I did not see anything unique to "old geek" in the website, other than the URL of course. I guess it is an implicit assumption by both job seekers as well as job posters. On that note, where would this concept be headed if other job sites added a simple attribute called age (or something similar but more palatable) where job posters could specify their preferred age range, and job seekers could search on it?
altitudinous 10y ago
Sir, a fine website, one that I cannot take advantage of because I am in Australia. However a minor point - I do have some difficulty seeing the pale green highlight around the positions, I believe it may be to do with my red/green colourblindness, common amongst men, it is almost impossible to see against the bold blue. If you are feeling creative maybe you can change the colour of the highlight to a different less pale green or another colour. Thanks again for your site and congrats on your success. Cheers.
- altitudinous 10y ago
  I have since posted this directly under the medium article.
betimd 10y ago
Have you planned to share app source code? Or can you share it?

1071 points by johnwheeler 10y ago

Simultaneously a great story and proof of the value of an 'experienced' coder. Looking forward to seeing how far this goes!

gregsadetsky 10y ago

Congrats! Small note, none of the listings appear when using uBlock Origin [ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa... ], a popular ad blocker. It seems related to your /js/ads-controller.js file (it gets blocked because of the "/js/ads-" portion in the path). I would suggest fixing that (and preferably minimizing your JS into one bundle).

johnwheeler 10y ago
Oh man - thank you. I was getting reports of the same, and now I know why. Fixed.
- wavee 10y ago
  Still broken for me. Turns out I have div#ads filter enabled that comes from one of the uBlock 3rd party sources.
  - s_kilk 10y ago
    (To the OP) Maybe change "ads" to "posts" globally in the frontend? Adblockers are are always going to block anything called "ads", even if it's a legit component of your site
    - hakanderyal 10y ago
      Same for 'analytic', 'tracker' and related keywords.
    - pjc50 10y ago
      I suppose it's a philosophical question: if you go to a job ads site, and the adblocker blocks it, is that really unexpected behavior? :)
      - majewsky 10y ago
        Well, you could also go to a job postings site. ;)
      - sharemywin 10y ago
        That's one of those cases where you can be right and broke or cave.
madeofpalk 10y ago
This has bitten us in the backside before. We never understood why certain pull requests wouldn't load in Atlassian Stash/BitBucket Server - turns out our adblocker was blocking the page from loading due to having "ad" in the title.
- tempestn 10y ago
  I've run into that as well. I'm amazed that popular ad blockers still do that, since it's obviously trivial to work around for actual ads, and will result in so many false positives.
  - megablast 10y ago
    They do it because it works.
    - connoredel 10y ago
      That's a hilarious comment, and a good point. But you can tell when your ad blocker is messing with site functionality beyond just blocking ads (i.e., the false positives your parent comment mentions). And at a certain point, this is a differentiator among the ad blockers.
robbles 10y ago
It's incredible that people put up with how buggy these adblocker extensions are. Seriously, blocking an arbitrary URL with "ads" in the path? Can't they just stick to blocking domain regexes instead of actually breaking the web?
- endisukaj 10y ago
  The web is broken by all the intrusive ads. I don't mind breaking 1% of the pages I visit if that means blocking ads in 99% of the internet.
codedokode 10y ago
The one that should be fixed here is a buggy blocking plugin.
- elliotec 10y ago
  uBlock is really good at blocking ads, and a lot of other things that aren't ads too.
jbyers 10y ago
This is a good reason to never prefix generated Javascript with hex hashes, at least without swapping out vowels. We rolled the dice one and had this happen on Wikispaces once; it was utterly infuriating to debug.
- blaze33 10y ago
  Nice catch, never thought about it. Is it more problematic with preffixes (vs. suffixes etc.) or should we generally avoid any random string? Appending a hash to the script is very convenient to force the download of the new version of an asset (but maybe we have better solutions now, haven't considered this issue in a while).
  - imron 10y ago
    In your site's code, reference the asset in a path that includes the timestamp the asset file last changed. e.g. /js/1476929634/myscript.js instead of /js/myscript.js Then use your webserver to rewrite /js/<any number>/myscript.js to /js/myscript.js
    - Scaevolus 10y ago
      You can also do /js/myscript.js?v=1476929634 -- this generally works without any server-side changes. A CRC32 might work better, since controlling mtimes can be annoying.
      - imron 10y ago
        You can, but that can cause issues with browser caching (http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2008/08/23/revving-filenames-dont-use-querystring/ http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2008/08/23/revving-filename...) and in any case I prefer the cleaner urls :-) Plus, once it's configured you never have to worry about it again.
    - e12e 10y ago
      Or just use a decimal hash, rather than hex? Eg in python3: import hashlib as h int(h.sha256(b" ").hexdigest(), 16) > 24725091799402603688614593151141908335745916334489781770578761787218146381928 h.sha256(b" ").hexdigest() > 36a9e7f1c95b82ffb99743e0c5c4ce95d83c9a430aac59f84ef3cbfab6145068 It's longer, but even a 256-hash isn't that long? (and sha1 would probably be fine, obviously)
bbcbasic 10y ago
If enough people use ad blockers I think they should just make ignoring files and divs with "ad" in their name part of the HTML specification.
- messel 10y ago
  Hah! This is great. "Wait all descriptors containing the letters 'ad' are ignored?" "Madness." "This is HTML!"
  - dylanfw 10y ago
    > "Madness." Blocked by ad blocker.
    - adhdlimited 10y ago
      Haha..just my pint its freaking html
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
skrebbel 10y ago
Ad blockers truly are the new virus scanners. They monitor everything that goes into and out of your computer and randomly break stuff just for kicks. And if that happens, it's somehow the fault of the software provider and not the ad blocker vendor. You can't test against ad blockers (or virus scanners) because the lists keep changing, so you end up applying ridiculous alchemy like not calling your API endpoints "/analysis" but "/computation" and then you just hope for the best. In the grand scheme of things, I agree that the people behind ad blockers are fighting the good fight, but in practice it's become a cat-and-mouse game of "who can break the internet the most". I don't know a solution.
- spurgu 10y ago
  I don't use any ad blockers, instead I only use Ghostery, which seems to work in a lot more sane way.
Kiro 10y ago
And that's one of the reasons I don't use an ad blocker. Not even uBlock Origin, which receives all the praise, is reliable in that sense. I don't understand the crusade against people not using ad blockers by the way. I believe I have good reasons not to. Why do people seem to have a problem with that?
- emodendroket 10y ago
  What "crusade?" I don't care if other people don't use ad blockers; in fact, it's probably to my benefit.
  - Kiro 10y ago
    I was getting downvoted before adding the second paragraph and it always happens when I say similar things.
Torn 10y ago
+1 for the minimizing into one bundle thing. Sets of assets are loading sequentially which is slowing page load down. Your code in each js file seems self-contained, so a simple in-order file concatenation into one .js file as a build step would help. gulp and gulp-concat would do it in a few lines of node, and you'd push the built output to your site. If you end up wrting so much script that a concatenation approach stops scaling, look into webpack and web modules.

K-Wall 10y ago

Awesome story! Just as a heads up with uBlock Origin in Chrome on macOS one is greeted with a header followed by a white page. Everything loaded with once I shut it off. http://i.imgur.com/Ovbi0ic.png http://i.imgur.com/Ovbi0ic.png

alexdumitru 10y ago
I noticed the same thing and the problem is the js file contains the word 'ads', which seems to be blacklisted in uBlock.

alexdumitru 10y ago

The jobs don't load with uBlock active.

chinese_dan 10y ago
Why should this site owner cater to someone using adblock software? If you want to see the jobs properly, add the domain to your white list.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Why should this site owner cater to someone using adblock software? Because he's trying to make money and ignoring this problem may lose him users? It's not like he's actually showing regular web ads, so an ad-blocking user is as potentially profitable as any other.

nextos 10y ago

It's a lovely story. I bet there are tons of similar ideas that can succeed with a quick MVP and a bit of ingenuity.

ikeboy 10y ago
I tried to launch my e-commerce MVP with a Show HN but didn't get far. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12708181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12708181 Going to try resubmitting.
- ambicapter 10y ago
  Yeah, but have you noticed a ton of articles on HN complaining about the problem that you fix? That's the difference here.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    Now that I think about it, I've seen a bunch of complaints on HN about Amazon having fake goods for sale (most recently https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12743316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12743316, but it comes up pretty much every time there's an article remotely related to Amazon). Maybe I should mention something about how we're only sourcing from legitimate suppliers like retailers or direct from manufacturers, which might alleviate that issue. It's definitely not the main problem I'm trying to solve, which is the amount of time good deal-hunting takes. (Price comparison, coupons, taxes, plus around a dozen other considerations).
    - jmickey 10y ago
      I think it would be useful to give examples on how or where you your site finds an item at a price that I, presumably, was not able to find? It sounds sketchy. :) Also not sure if the whole workflow of your clients providing prices for items and then hoping your site delivers will work. How do I know the price I provided is realistic at all? If you already have the capability to find items cheaply, just list those items on your website and let people purchase them :)

jnevelson 10y ago

I'm not even the target market (too young), and this is my favorite job board already. Very fast to navigate around - speed IS a feature! Also love how granular the locations are.

elkhourygeorges 10y ago

Awesome!

Jugurtha 10y ago

Awesome.. I remember reading your first post and finding the idea neat but also saying in my head, with amusement: "right, everything is easy when your name is John Wheeler". Archibald.

LyndsySimon 10y ago
Everything is easy if you expect it to be, and act as if it's going to be. Lyndsy. :)

sparky_ 10y ago

I hadn't seen this site before, and I think it's a great idea. Though I'm young, I am certainly terrified about the trend of age discrimination in the valley - after all, we all age! I'm glad to folks trying to make a meaningful difference in the trend. Perhaps through good samaritans such as OP, those same twenty-somethings that reject so many qualified applicants on account of age will receive better treatment when they themselves reach 35 or 40.

samfisher83 10y ago
In 5 years there will be some new hot nodejs and then those current 20 year old will find the same thing and they will complain about the same thing. Oracle and Sap job pay pretty well and they are filled with old people (30+).

Jetroid 10y ago

Shrewd, this story is just going to bring more visitors. :-)

soared 10y ago

I thought I was on medium.com.. You need to add a call to action to the end of your post! Add a short line - "if you've experienced ageism checkout these job listsing at /link" or "to see what I built visit /link" or something similar. Lots of lazy people want to click a link at the end of your post to see your site rather than trying to find a link in your profile or scrolling all the way to the top. Plus when someone inevitably copies your content, you get a free link. I should make a site with marketing tips for devs...

johnwheeler 10y ago
Thanks for the solid. Done.
ranit 10y ago
> I should make a site with marketing tips for devs... Do it and don't forget to post it here. ... Seriously.
j_s 10y ago
http://devmarketing.xyz/ http://devmarketing.xyz/ by https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mijustin https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mijustin
- soared 10y ago
  thanks for linking this. That makes me want to do it more actually.. Sites like that guys make me feel uncomfortable.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ebel 10y ago

made my day.

jxramos 10y ago

Glad to see things taking off via HN community. Keep up the good work.

mrlambchop 10y ago

Woah - did I miss the announcement that old is now 35 and above? Given the working range of professional engineers in the SF field, it sad that its not easier to invert the problem and build a Young-Fun-and-Full-of-Recent-Academic-Course-Material-Jobs.com.

giancarlostoro 10y ago
I don't think that age is old, I find I rather have people who are experienced more important than age. If you have skill, I could care less if you're 80, so long as you get results and share your insights. I've learned plenty from those who are developers for longer amounts of time than me. A real issue is targeting jobs for people who don't live in places that are known tech hubs. It took me knowing the right person to finally get a 'real job' in the field, and I only got it a few months ago (less than 2) I honestly don't know what I could of done otherwise, I've applied at a number of places and only ever got maybe one email back.
- lucaspiller 10y ago
  This is just how recruiting works in tech, it's nothing about you personally. Knowing people is really the best way to get work in this industry even in the hubs. This is why code schools are so successful, unlike a traditional educational institute they are usually run by people who have worked in the industry, who will have the contacts to get you your first job.
cialowicz 10y ago
"The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) protects certain applicants and employees 40 years of age and older from discrimination on the basis of age in hiring, promotion, discharge, compensation, or terms, conditions or privileges of employment." [0] OldGeekJobs.com works since it's the reverse of this... essentially discriminating against younger candidates. It's not legal to discriminate against 40+ in the US. [0]: https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/agedisc https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/agedisc
- 10y ago

mathattack 10y ago

One of the reasons I want to work on OldGeekJobs is because I’ve experienced ageism first-hand. I’m only 37 years old, but I was rejected by a startup of twenty somethings a few months back. Ahh - that first painful moment of, "Wait a second, I'm too young to be the victim of age discrimination!"

econnors 10y ago

I really like how the author posted the fake pricetag before spending time implementing payment processing - easy way to verify people will pay for it, low cost of experimentation. I've heard of other companies using similar strategies like a/b testing features that don't exist yet to figure out what they should build next. Congrats!

xn 10y ago

All new job listing sites should follow the lead of AngelList and StackOverflow, and include a salary field.

hyperknot 10y ago

Congrats for doing this and writing so honestly about it! But why only $1000? There are 134 "green" jobs * $50 which would be $6700. Or the Stripe integration was added that much later on?

johnwheeler 10y ago
Correct - When the direct link made the front page of HN and the jobs were free to post

mikemikemike 10y ago

I wonder if the problem is specific to ageism in individual contributor roles. I've worked at a few startups where maybe 1/3 of the product team was over 40, but I can only think of two coworkers over 40 who didn't have any direct reports. Do we find ourselves wondering why an individual hasn't "advanced" to a management position after 10+ years?

pcsanwald 10y ago
I don't ever wonder this when hiring. It's very common to see someone who tried management for a while and didn't like it or wasn't good at it, and have concluded that they love coding for a living. Technical management isn't for everyone, and isn't a natural progression from being a software engineer. The transition is very difficult for most people.

mgkimsal 10y ago

I wish folks like Bray had championed this cause 20 years ago. It may not have done much, but... it feels a bit weird to hear old people complain about discriminatory impact. I can't say he was a contributing factor to the ongoing 'youth culture', but... it wasn't hard to see this coming. My situation may be somewhat unique, in that I've had grey hair since I was 18. Not a HUGE amount at 18, but... people noticed. By the time I was in my mid 20s, it was definitely noticeable - more pepper than salt still, but noticeable. By 30... there's a fair amount of grey showing. Early 30s I've got people thinking I look good for being in my late 40s (had that more than a couple times). But when it came to interviewing and opportunities, I was already feeling the age stigma in my late 20s. "Not a cultural fit" - not even in silicon valley mind you. Had someone interviewing me - early 30s - said "well your resume only goes back about 12 years or so, what were you doing before that?" "High school". "Whoah..." - later found out he's assumed I was mid 40s. Could I dye my hair? Yeah, but.. it's a pain, and... other parts of me will get old too. Not worth it - want to get hired based on ability, etc. What's sad is to hear about the mid 30s folks wanting to get plastic surgery to look younger, which just validates and perpetuates the continuous youth culture. May not be possible to fight it at the Facebooks and Googles of the world, but it shouldn't be this bad...

SystemOut 10y ago
I can't comment on Facebook but at Google I see plenty of people in their mid 30s and beyond. I joined in my early 40s. Yeah, we hire a lot of new grads / younger folks (I interview a lot of new grads) but I haven't noticed any overt ageism in the groups I've been in. Plus, the people making the hire decision don't see the candidate anyways. You should/would most likely get called out by the hiring groups if you added in color/vague "cultural fit" references. This is just my experience, though.
- duderific 10y ago
  Well, that's a huge company with many different types of engineers, and in business a long time (relatively). I would say the ageism is more likely at small startups that happen to have mostly young (in their 20s) engineers.

Lxr 10y ago

I love how simple and clean your site is, I would use it just because of that. Nice work!

rsp1984 10y ago

spent an hour putting up a Google form and static site on a cheap Digital Ocean instance. Now I feel like the Old Geek (I'm 32): What's the deal with Digital Ocean? If the website is static and receives content by manual copy-pasting from a Google sheet (as outlined in the article), why bother with Droplets and Storage and all the other configuration? Why is good old web hosting (the kind where you just upload your html/php/js via FTP and it all just works) not good enough for this? Really curious.

BillinghamJ 10y ago
Digital Ocean is just a simple VPS provider - I wouldn't even call it cloud. The usual cPanel PHP 5.4 shared hosting is consistently unreliable, insecure and a generally overall bad idea. Who would you actually even trust to run it?
- billmalarky 10y ago
  Eh, DO is cloud. The instances are virtual and can be resized dynamically.
  - _joel 10y ago
    Not sure I follow that ontology as that doesn't necessarily make something a cloud. API's to interact with the ecosystem make it more like a cloud. Whilst I understand DO have API's, just saying the machine can be dynamically resized doesn't justify the cloud tag. Cloud doesn't need to be virtual, either.
    - billmalarky 10y ago
      To me, I think of cloud as a business term that describes infrastructure that can be easily manipulated with software (or dashboards). That's what DO provides albeit with WAY less functionality than AWS (but at a much lower price point).
  - elcct 10y ago
    Cloud is just someone else's computer, so you're right

JoblessWonder 10y ago

Great site! And thanks for taking my feedback in stride about the "tell people you heard it on oldgeekjobs.com" not being appropriate for the scraped jobs! The change (along with prioritizing paid ones) looks great!

life_is_short 10y ago

I found a bug. Job postings aren't sorted by date correctly. For example https://oldgeekjobs.com/jobs/California?page=2 https://oldgeekjobs.com/jobs/California?page=2 shows jobs posted '2 days ago' while the front page shows jobs posted '30 days ago'.

stevesearer 10y ago
It looks like it may be listing 'Old Geek Jobs' posts first and then the backfilled job posts from StackOverflow second.
- life_is_short 10y ago
  Yeah, probably. Now I wonder which of the job posts are 'Old Geek Jobs', for old geeks, and which are not.

avip 10y ago

I don't get something - 37 is now considered "old"? Is this some kind of millenia neolang?

krapp 10y ago
Old begins at 20, now, maybe 25. Anything after 35 is old without even the benefit of plausible deniability. 40 and above, you might as well be dead.

the_watcher 10y ago

This is great. Great idea, and an extremely good example of building just an MVP and going from there.

quaffapint 10y ago

I just joined a new company and I feel a little reverse-ageism from my part. My team and most of the company employees are at a younger point in their life. After leaving a company where I could talk to people about kids the same age as mine and such, I find it all a little unnerving and uncomfortable. They've been fine and I imagine once I've been there awhile it will be ok, as I still have people outside of work to talk to, but it will take a little getting used to. Also - When I search for 'c#' it seems to filter out the '#'.

hash-set 10y ago
You're clearly not a cultural fit, then.

shostack 10y ago

What are your marketing/PR plans now that you've gotten a few major press hits? All too often people aren't ready for the buzz when it comes, and see a sharp spike that then falls off a cliff once the buzz dies down.

morganvachon 10y ago

Fantastic job and a great service! One thing: The linked article states that you started on October 15th, but the screenshots indicate you started September 15th.

johnwheeler 10y ago
Yikes! Honest mistake. Fixed
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

hash-set 10y ago

Here's the deal: Employers will exploit your age no matter how old you are. There is no "perfect age" for a developer. When you're young, they exploit you because you are inexperienced (especially at negotiation). When you are "old" they exploit by trying to play the age card. "Not a cultural fit"--LOL--fix your stupid culture and stop exploiting people, you smug fools! So what is there? A ten year "ripe" age range where you're good enough to code but don't have a wife and kids? Blatant exploitation of human capital. As far as "moving up to management" that's a load of crap. There aren't enough management positions to soak up all the age 35+ developers out there. It's an extremely narrow funnel. For the winners of that race, the prize is a lifetime of quiet suffering: You'll be lucky if you retire without major depression, anxiety, heart problems, or all three. I wonder what the mortality statistics are for people who work as IT managers? There is also this role called "architect." Do not be enticed. It is, at best, a torturous role, and at worst, it's a redundant role that people who were only so-so at coding get promoted to so they can no longer annoy the rest of the team. The effectiveness of any given architect has an exponential decay from the instant they stop coding and start attending meetings all day. Basically, you either keep coding and stay relevant or you go do something else completely. The rest is bs. But don't for a second imagine that companies aren't exploiting you by making you uneasy about your age or whatever else can be thrown in front of you to try and confuse, diminish, and lowball you.

xedarius 10y ago
This is 100% accurate in every aspect.
reustle 10y ago
> "Not a cultural fit"--LOL--fix your stupid culture and stop exploiting people, you smug fools! If you're hiring someone 15+ years older than the rest of your team, there are going to be some cultural differences.
- LnxPrgr3 10y ago
  So? You're getting together to build things for money, not pounding back beers on the front porch and ranting about politics.

up_and_up 10y ago

Awesome work! As a 34 year-old I can't believe I am faced with impending discrimination, but I guess its true. Thanks from my future self!

bognition 10y ago
cheers mate, me too. Now get off my lawn

gggggggg 10y ago

Just a idea which I am sure would be easy given what you currently have, femalegeekjobs.com

wavee 10y ago
I don't think this should exist
- gggggggg 10y ago
  I have to ask why? I have a team of male devs, and for my last hire really wanted a female for a different perspective and help balance the team, however only received 1 not ideal female application. At the end of the day, oldgeeks mean you are discriminating (filtering out the young), why should it not work on gender also? Its all just different levels of discrimination.
  - nibnib 10y ago
    > Its all just different levels of discrimination. Aren't some of those levels enforced legally?
aethertron 10y ago
Yeah. Suggestion for OP: register the domain and just mirror the exact same site content.

pjlegato 10y ago

Great, I love that this worked out! What's the purpose of backfilling jobs from StackOverflow -- is it just to make the site look less like a ghost town? Aren't those not necessarily old-geek friendly jobs?

vanderreeah 10y ago
I would like to know this too - how do you ensure you only pull old-geek-appropriate jobs from SO?

encore2097 10y ago

Awesome and congrats! how'd you make those sweet gif screen caps?

tracker1 10y ago

If there's an insistance on a fixed-width font for the site, I really wish it was something more like Consolas/Inconsolata etc... The job descriptions are nearly unreadable on my display, lighter gray, with a relatively thin font weight.

johnwheeler 10y ago
I'll try it out with different fonts. Never even thought of that!
- tracker1 10y ago
  Thanks, I know it came across fairly snarky, and that wasn't my intent, it's just I had a lot of trouble actually reading the site. For reference, here's the fixed width family bootstrap is using... font-family:Menlo,Monaco,Consolas,"Liberation Mono","Courier New",monospace I'd add Inconsolata after Consolas...

jondubois 10y ago

It sounds like everything worked out perfectly for the author on that fateful day. What are the odds that a stranger saw the author's initial (unsuccessful) post in the HN 'new' section and decided to write a whole article about it, post it to HN (with a link to the original form) and that this new post made it to the front page... Then it crashed... But thankfully there was an HN moderator on that day who cared enough to edit the link to send users directly to this form. It sounds like the author made the most of it though, so I guess it's well deserved.

alpeb 10y ago

Love the concept and the site. Minor gripe though, that I also find in most job boards: searching for Scala also gets me all the entries with the word "scalable" in them :-(

anotherevan 10y ago

I was going to make a snarky comment regarding if this site is for old geeks, then the blog should have an RSS feed, but if you go from the article to the blog's home page the RSS feed is there. :-) Are you planning to open this up for areas outside the USA? (Australia here.)

CodeWriter23 10y ago

@johnwheeler: Their loss for not hiring you. I thought I was hot shit when I had 5 years under my belt, too, just like those whipper snappers. Took another 10 to recognize how full of shit that idea was. I think there's a certain niche that wants to hire experienced, disciplined and reliable "old" geeks like you (or actual old guys like me...still grinding code at 50). Looks like you're going to own it. Well played.

messel 10y ago
Totally agree, thought I was a solid engineer in my early-mid 20s. Had no idea how much I'd learn. I'm frightened by how much more I could learn now (42). I waste much less time, still make silly mistakes, but much less often.
Chris2048 10y ago
Can I ask what the difference is? What didn't you know?
- marktangotango 10y ago
  Less is more, focus on results, not code. Two things off the top of my head. I just hired onto a subsidiary of a big corp, a cadre of 5 of started on the same day: 39, 41, 42, 45, and 55. Companies are paying top dollar for experience now, from what I'm seeing.
  - johnwheeler 10y ago
    >> Less is more, focus on results, not code. Two things off the top of my head. bingo. same here.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

santa_boy 10y ago

Wow thats cool! How are you actually getting end user views? Is it through the PR articles or do you have a plan in mind? What is a "faux price tag"? :-) .. how does it work?

ge96 10y ago
Don't quote me: seems from the context he just threw it on there to see if they would still use it. Which they did. So he actually setup stripe to accept money. That's what I inferred anyway.

dbdoug 10y ago

FWIW, I just turned 70 and I'm still being offered more coding work than I want. It is VBA, though :)

cdubzzz 10y ago
This I like to hear. Hopefully LAMP will be the VBA of my seventies (:

ge96 10y ago

Once you grew/adapted to the growth is that $1000/mo still profit or overall earnings? Awesme btw posts like these inspire me, damn what is the next problem to solve.

RikNieu 10y ago

I started a new career as a front-end developer at the age of 33(last year), so I have my age and lack of experience counting against me. I must say, I do worry about my future prospects a lot. Hopefully sites like this can throw a bone to us old dogs out there.

khnd 10y ago
yikes old dog at 33.
nul_byte 10y ago
Honestly, as long as you stay hungry to learn, there is a high chance you will be fine. This has always worked for me.

sparrish 10y ago

If you really want us old geeks to use it, you need a command line interface.

drieddust 10y ago

Thanks for sharing this. If not finest then quickest example of idea -> MVP -> Product I have seen so far. I applaud you for the brave decision of putting it out there. On the contrary, I always end up planning endlessly. Evaluating the best framework, best UI, best architecture and actually end of doing nothing.

tudorconstantin 10y ago

Idea to make even more money (if you get billionaire on it, please make me a millionaire also :) ): there are services that post jobs to multiple job boards. Create an API they could hook your site in easily and offer them a 20$ discount, so they can offer your service to their customers for 40$ and can also win a 10$/job posted to you. Examples of such sites that come to mind are ziprecruiter.com and broadbean.com

exlurker 10y ago

I like the simplicity of the site! But how about some more contrast on the body text. For us old geeks, you know.

dannylandau 10y ago

Don't get it, how do you know that age discrimination is not at play with the jobs listed on your site?

icebraining 10y ago
Self-selection. Why bother paying to post a job on a site called OldGeekJobs if you won't accept old geeks as applicants?

fm328 10y ago

congratz and great work!

Annatar 10y ago

What about reverse job postings, where old people could post what they can do, and where they want to work?

xupybd 10y ago

Any chance of opening this up to other countries?

adolfoabegg 10y ago

Congrats John! this is perfect example of how ideas should be tested and developed. Loved the story!

madshiva 10y ago

Great! Congrats! I'm 33 and I start to feel old too when applying to some jobs and when I see what you did this boost my motivation too! don't stop!

b212 10y ago

Can you do another good deed and require your posters to include salary range in their job ads? It's the norm in the UK and we successfully forced this in Poland (though posters almost NEVER post salaries here). How? The companies need IT staff so much that almost all IT job boards (at least the most popular ones - like FB groups or https://nofluffjobs.com https://nofluffjobs.com) started requiring the salary range. I think your idea is praiseworthy, but I'd never ever create a website like this with hidden salaries. Especially in your case - it's so cool people post jobs on your board, but what if they do so, because they're offering 10, 20, 40% less because it's a place for "old geeks that noone wants"? I'm really super proud that if a IT ad in Poland has no salary range most of us just ignore it. And it took us maybe 2 years to get to this place. I think every other country should follow the lead and end the "competitive salary" trend. I don't want to spend 3 days on interviews just to discover that the salary offered is way too low for me. Salary missing from an ad is a big lack of respect, the sooner people realize that the better.

tracker1 10y ago
I will usually just flat out ask up front.. and if it's a cagey response, I'll kindly decline.
- goatherders 10y ago
  I usually decline to interview people that ask my recruiter too early about salary. We work hard to post very clear job descriptions and requirements so if you read it and apply and get through the initial screening, then that's a pretty good indicator that we are in range on salary even if we've never discussed it.
  - Benjamin_Dobell 10y ago
    Undoubtedly you're turning away the best candidates and almost exclusively interviewing candidates whom have extreme difficulty finding work elsewhere; so much so that the applicants value their own time so poorly that they believe it worthwhile to interview for a job which may not meet their personal financial requirements. I'd strongly suggest you change your practices and observe the improved calibre of interviewees. EDIT: Also, if you really want good candidates, stop using a recruiter.

jwmoz 10y ago

Shameless plug: UK CONTRACTOR web jobs here http://weworkcontract.com http://weworkcontract.com

happy-go-lucky 10y ago

On one hand, I'm getting older. On the other, my skills are getting better. The younger people I work with can't keep pace with me. And, my employers aren't unaware of the fact that it indeed is a zero-sum game, so my age (early 40ies) has never been an issue so far. I believe there're and will be many employers who look at nothing but what you bring to the table. As a businessman, you wouldn't be foolish enough to hire only noobs.

radious 10y ago

I think this a great idea but why would anyone pay for posting an ad? There're many free-to-post sites already.

sharemywin 10y ago

I think your definitely on to something. I can't wait to see how far you take it.

JonoBB 10y ago

Well done and nicely executed! That early "Hacker News Effect" really got you off to a roll, and you made the most of it. Have you ever thought what would have happened if that Wordpress write-up was not created, or didn't get such a good response on HN?

mountaineer22 10y ago

Excellent job. It is great to see the birth of an idea and watch it grow. Thank you for sharing with us. It is greatly appreciated.

Lord_Zero 10y ago

What I really like about this is how the interface is so dead simple. It could be the Craigslist of job postings with the $50 barrier to entry to filter out shitty posts. My advice is to not overdo it with features and KISS.

drdoom 10y ago

Congratulations on seeing the opportunity and quickly moving to do something about it. It is unique enough at first sight that you got early coverage in the press, which is very helpful. Quick question: I did not see anything unique to "old geek" in the website, other than the URL of course. I guess it is an implicit assumption by both job seekers as well as job posters. On that note, where would this concept be headed if other job sites added a simple attribute called age (or something similar but more palatable) where job posters could specify their preferred age range, and job seekers could search on it?

altitudinous 10y ago

Sir, a fine website, one that I cannot take advantage of because I am in Australia. However a minor point - I do have some difficulty seeing the pale green highlight around the positions, I believe it may be to do with my red/green colourblindness, common amongst men, it is almost impossible to see against the bold blue. If you are feeling creative maybe you can change the colour of the highlight to a different less pale green or another colour. Thanks again for your site and congrats on your success. Cheers.

altitudinous 10y ago
I have since posted this directly under the medium article.

betimd 10y ago

Have you planned to share app source code? Or can you share it?