As a programmer who has perused hundreds of job postings in the past, I'm inclined to agree with the author that the HN post was a good one. Yes, some of it is

As a programmer who has perused hundreds of job postings in the past, I'm inclined to agree with the author that the HN post was a good one. Yes, some of it is bullshit (the napping part), but most of it is great. It's quite specific and does a good job differentiating itself from many other postings. Here's what I think when I read it: > "we’re looking to hire a smart all-around programmer" Looks like I'm gonna have to be a jack-of-all trades rather than a master of one. That's good, definitely my style. > "as our first hire." A lot will be expected of me. I'll have to be self-motivated and self-organized. No slacking. Long hours. This is a legitimate startup job. > "It’s a cliche, but we want people who like tackling complicated problems." Yep, cliche. I like that you point it out though, makes me take this requirement more seriously. I happen to enjoy working through complicated problems, no reservations here. > "Depending on the task, we program in Ruby (on Rails), Javascript (a lot of this), PHP, Python, Objective-C (iPhone), and Java (Android). Flexibility is a plus." Great, specifics. Once again, focusing on the jack-of-all trades thing. They're clearly at a point where they can't (and probably shouldn't) hire specialists. > "we like people who don’t put themselves in a box. You should be comfortable thinking about the product as a whole, and how changes are going to impact the hundreds of thousands of people who use it regularly." In other words, this is a startup, we don't want stereotypical big company guys. I can't just blend in. I'll have a lot of responsibility, and I'll be making a lot of real decisions. I'm basically a co-founder who's a little late to the game. > "make the lives of hundreds of thousands of people better every month" Hmmm, they seem to care about the social impact of their product. Probably a good thing, but could be a bad/annoying thing if taken to an extreme. > "napping is an encouraged part of our corporate culture." Probably bullshit. I don't have any real desire to nap on the job, but I'll definitely ask for details out of curiosity. > We’re profitable ... have a rapidly expanding user base That's cool, but I'd like to know more. Ramen profitable or Rolls Royce profitable? 500 new users a day or 5000 users a day? They seem to be trying to sell me on this point, so if I get an interview I'm going to find out more specifics. It's good that they care about profits though, I do too. > Basically, you’ll get to be the first employee of a small successful startup, while getting a paycheck and equity Cool. Always good to list what I'll be getting. Will ask about benefits, not expecting any though. > and feeling good about the impact you’re having on the world. Another reference to social impact. I have to ask myself, am I the kind of person who would consider "being a do-gooder" more than a negligible part of the recompense for the long, stressful hours of startup life? Not a lot of people will stay up coding til 3AM Saturday night and say, "Hey, at least I did some good for someone out there."