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Thank you for commenting here! I am curious. Can you be a little specific and tell us what Linux or Unix experience do you have? I mean can you specify the Li

Thank you for commenting here! I am curious. Can you be a little specific and tell us what Linux or Unix experience do you have? I mean can you specify the Linux distro names and the Unix brand names (AIX, Solaris, etc.) that you have worked with?

derenrich 9y ago
wait do people actually think this position requires Unix (not linux) experience? I assumed the recruiter must just be wrong there.
- samoright 9y ago
  It is not uncommon to come across open positions that actually do require Unix (not Linux) experience. For example, American Express has a large deployment of AIX systems and they indeed look for candidates with experience in AIX systems, although I believe someone with experience in another Unix or Unix-like system should also be okay. But I agree that such openings are usually quite specific about which Unix system they are working with.
  - ThrustVectoring 9y ago
    AIX specifically as a preference is different than anything that works like a Unix system.
  - SmirkingRevenge 9y ago
    This is true, but I would imagine that, if not in the job description, if a really specific kind of Unix experience is required, it would come out in the exchange - and be really OS specific and actually say - True64, AIX, Solaris, etc. "Unix-like" today means bsd/linux. The recruiter did bad, but recruiters will always do bad. If its a job you want, don't let a recruiter foible disqualify you, if you can help it.
    - throwaway0255 9y ago
      This is kind of out of left-field, but are you the same Smirk from AC/MT (~17 years ago)?
      - SmirkingRevenge 9y ago
        Nope, not it!
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
aspyrx 9y ago
RE: Linux distros, I am familiar with Ubuntu, Debian, and Arch Linux. To some extent RHEL as well. RE: Unix (commercial brand names), none. It was my fault that I assumed the recruiter meant UNIX-like systems. I can claim experience with developing userland applications portable across POSIX-compliant systems, as well as some understanding of lower-level operating system concepts. However, to be honest it seems I am unqualified for the role as specified, which makes the exchange all the more embarrassing. Oh well, what's done is done.
- throwaway76543 9y ago
  The recruiter did mean UNIX-like systems. There exists no useful set of experience which is common among pedantically defined "UNIX" and which excludes UNIX-like systems. The pedantic definition-lawyer type responses you've gotten are absurd. A role might specifically require extensive AIX experience in particular -- and if it did you would say you needed "AIX experience" -- never some vague umbrella family of "UNIX experience." It is entirely unbelievable that the requirements for this role would exclude your experience. Doubly so as they're recruiting from interns. Triply so if you know anything about Facebook engineering teams. "Production Engineer?" "Frontend Engineer?" At Facebook? Yeah, those teams run Linux. ps: The folks telling you not to language lawyer are correct. But your initial assumption that the recruiter had made a dumb mistake was also correct.
  - dsr_ 9y ago
    "The recruiter did mean UNIX-like systems." Nope. The hiring manager meant that. The recruiter in this case is a pattern-matching engine with no internal semantics, as a result of Facebook hiring them and training them but not educating them. Eventually they'll notice that they are only seeing car salesmen with extensive experience in selling brown cars with walnut dashboards, rather than carpenters. [ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15190438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15190438 ]
- qaq 9y ago
  As have being mentioned multiple times already OS X is certified UNIX (https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/ https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/) so I am guessing you do have experience with UNIX.

derenrich 9y ago

wait do people actually think this position requires Unix (not linux) experience? I assumed the recruiter must just be wrong there.

samoright 9y ago
It is not uncommon to come across open positions that actually do require Unix (not Linux) experience. For example, American Express has a large deployment of AIX systems and they indeed look for candidates with experience in AIX systems, although I believe someone with experience in another Unix or Unix-like system should also be okay. But I agree that such openings are usually quite specific about which Unix system they are working with.
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  AIX specifically as a preference is different than anything that works like a Unix system.
- SmirkingRevenge 9y ago
  This is true, but I would imagine that, if not in the job description, if a really specific kind of Unix experience is required, it would come out in the exchange - and be really OS specific and actually say - True64, AIX, Solaris, etc. "Unix-like" today means bsd/linux. The recruiter did bad, but recruiters will always do bad. If its a job you want, don't let a recruiter foible disqualify you, if you can help it.
  - throwaway0255 9y ago
    This is kind of out of left-field, but are you the same Smirk from AC/MT (~17 years ago)?
    - SmirkingRevenge 9y ago
      Nope, not it!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

aspyrx 9y ago

RE: Linux distros, I am familiar with Ubuntu, Debian, and Arch Linux. To some extent RHEL as well. RE: Unix (commercial brand names), none. It was my fault that I assumed the recruiter meant UNIX-like systems. I can claim experience with developing userland applications portable across POSIX-compliant systems, as well as some understanding of lower-level operating system concepts. However, to be honest it seems I am unqualified for the role as specified, which makes the exchange all the more embarrassing. Oh well, what's done is done.

throwaway76543 9y ago
The recruiter did mean UNIX-like systems. There exists no useful set of experience which is common among pedantically defined "UNIX" and which excludes UNIX-like systems. The pedantic definition-lawyer type responses you've gotten are absurd. A role might specifically require extensive AIX experience in particular -- and if it did you would say you needed "AIX experience" -- never some vague umbrella family of "UNIX experience." It is entirely unbelievable that the requirements for this role would exclude your experience. Doubly so as they're recruiting from interns. Triply so if you know anything about Facebook engineering teams. "Production Engineer?" "Frontend Engineer?" At Facebook? Yeah, those teams run Linux. ps: The folks telling you not to language lawyer are correct. But your initial assumption that the recruiter had made a dumb mistake was also correct.
- dsr_ 9y ago
  "The recruiter did mean UNIX-like systems." Nope. The hiring manager meant that. The recruiter in this case is a pattern-matching engine with no internal semantics, as a result of Facebook hiring them and training them but not educating them. Eventually they'll notice that they are only seeing car salesmen with extensive experience in selling brown cars with walnut dashboards, rather than carpenters. [ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15190438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15190438 ]
qaq 9y ago
As have being mentioned multiple times already OS X is certified UNIX (https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/ https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/) so I am guessing you do have experience with UNIX.