4 ms·

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. The tougher the questions, the better.

anondon 10y ago
I'm jealous! Yours is literally a fairy tale launch. Just kidding, actually no, but congrats man! Very inspiring story. A few questions: -What did the companies that posted on your site have to say about the quality and quantity of candidates? -Do they feel it was $50 well spent? -Did people apply through your site and find jobs so far? Do you have a way of tracking the stats? -What is your future direction of this site? What features do you plan to add? -Oh, and how did the $10 Digital Ocean VPS hold up with the sudden spikes of traffic?
- johnwheeler 10y ago
  -What did the companies that posted on your site have to say about the quality and quantity of candidates? None of them have contacted me. -Do they feel it was $50 well spent? I don't know. -Did people apply through your site and find jobs so far? Do you have a way of tracking the stats? A few people wrote in to thank me and tell me they applied jobs. I haven't asked around, and there's no tracking in place. -What is your future direction of this site? What features do you plan to add? I want to keep focusing on the UX. Speed and ease of use are the features I care about most. I want the UI to be so good that people feel comfortable looking for a tech job no matter how old they are with the site catering to older geeks as a bonus. -Oh, and how did the $10 Digital Ocean VPS hold up with the sudden spikes of traffic? No issues at all. I use Flask-Cache backed by redis, which I'm sure helps a lot.
DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
The site seems unable to handle the search term "c++". Is there some trick to it?
- johnwheeler 10y ago
  No trick - just not currently supported. I use Postgresql full text search, and haven't researched how to handle c++ or c#. The only sophistication baked into the search are wildcard queries and title vs. description ranking. I'm aware of the limitations and want to fix them. If any HNers know what I should search for on Google to get this done, please let me know.
  - mempko 10y ago
    don't know about postgres but, just write a function that converts c++ into cpp (many use cpp too). Store that. Then on search do the same thing, c++ becomes cpp. probably simplest fix...
    - johnwheeler 10y ago
      That's smart. And c# -> csharp. I love HackerNews.
DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
More of an idea than a question... I think it would be awesome if a job site has some formalisms around various skills. A candidate could report his/her skills like this: (skill name) --> (level of proficiency and/or interest in learning). A job posting could report skill requirements in a similar manner: (skill name) --> (importance to job). It would be an awesome way to get highly-targeted search filters / notifications. Similar formalisms could be used to filter on commute / relocation details. Edit: Negative-terms would be very helpful as well. E.g., I'm actively averse to doing devops work, even if it's a match in other ways.

I'm jealous! Yours is literally a fairy tale launch. Just kidding, actually no, but congrats man! Very inspiring story. A few questions: -What did the companies that posted on your site have to say about the quality and quantity of candidates? -Do they feel it was $50 well spent? -Did people apply through your site and find jobs so far? Do you have a way of tracking the stats? -What is your future direction of this site? What features do you plan to add? -Oh, and how did the $10 Digital Ocean VPS hold up with the sudden spikes of traffic?

johnwheeler 10y ago
-What did the companies that posted on your site have to say about the quality and quantity of candidates? None of them have contacted me. -Do they feel it was $50 well spent? I don't know. -Did people apply through your site and find jobs so far? Do you have a way of tracking the stats? A few people wrote in to thank me and tell me they applied jobs. I haven't asked around, and there's no tracking in place. -What is your future direction of this site? What features do you plan to add? I want to keep focusing on the UX. Speed and ease of use are the features I care about most. I want the UI to be so good that people feel comfortable looking for a tech job no matter how old they are with the site catering to older geeks as a bonus. -Oh, and how did the $10 Digital Ocean VPS hold up with the sudden spikes of traffic? No issues at all. I use Flask-Cache backed by redis, which I'm sure helps a lot.

DoofusOfDeath 10y ago

The site seems unable to handle the search term "c++". Is there some trick to it?

johnwheeler 10y ago
No trick - just not currently supported. I use Postgresql full text search, and haven't researched how to handle c++ or c#. The only sophistication baked into the search are wildcard queries and title vs. description ranking. I'm aware of the limitations and want to fix them. If any HNers know what I should search for on Google to get this done, please let me know.
- mempko 10y ago
  don't know about postgres but, just write a function that converts c++ into cpp (many use cpp too). Store that. Then on search do the same thing, c++ becomes cpp. probably simplest fix...
  - johnwheeler 10y ago
    That's smart. And c# -> csharp. I love HackerNews.

DoofusOfDeath 10y ago

More of an idea than a question... I think it would be awesome if a job site has some formalisms around various skills. A candidate could report his/her skills like this: (skill name) --> (level of proficiency and/or interest in learning). A job posting could report skill requirements in a similar manner: (skill name) --> (importance to job). It would be an awesome way to get highly-targeted search filters / notifications. Similar formalisms could be used to filter on commute / relocation details. Edit: Negative-terms would be very helpful as well. E.g., I'm actively averse to doing devops work, even if it's a match in other ways.