4 ms·

To the folks at Starling: Do you even realize how obnoxious and full of yourselves you sound?! Let's see: suppose I'm a person who ranks highly on a lot of the

To the folks at Starling: Do you even realize how obnoxious and full of yourselves you sound?! Let's see: suppose I'm a person who ranks highly on a lot of the lines in your matrix. You expect me to send you a resume (which you say you won't really consider), then to rank myself on a 10-page matrix of skills and abilities (but you won't care much what I have to say), then to write some rather non-trivial sample programs for you, then to come to Vancouver, or maybe Tokyo (no mention of paying my expenses) and sign an NDA (a freaking NDA!) so that I can work on your code with you, and then you will decide if I'm worthy of working in a company which only mentions two people on its "About us" page, and then says that both of these people have left. Please splash some cold water on your faces and realize that people with the sort of intelligence, knowledge, drive, and leadership skills that you imply you are seeking can pretty much write their own ticket. And it won't be a ticket to get into your company, which frankly doesn't sound like it's setting the world on fire.

ojbyrne 16y ago
Not to mention that there's a grammatical error in the first sentence of the text on their front page - "Starling Software is currently dormant, as the principles are both deeply involved in projects that grew out of it." So they fail on that component (communication skills).
- yaakov34 16y ago
  Oh, they're bad at communication, all right, and not just because of some spelling error. Look at the description of their flagship product: http://www.starling-software.com/en/qam.html http://www.starling-software.com/en/qam.html What does it do? Who would use it? For what? I have absolutely no idea, and I don't think I'm the absolute dimmest light in the Christmas tree. They use totally general words like "component" without explaining what they mean to them in this context. A component could be an object which implements a specific API, or a set of files with version information attached, or whatever. I don't feel like I know anything about QAM after reading that page. And I don't feel like continuing to learn about it, either. Anyway, I do realize that Starling had nothing to do with submitting this to HN, but I still think they deserve some flameage for the general sense smugness and self-congratulation which one gets from their website, especially since those don't seem be backed up by any world-beating performance.
- run4yourlives 16y ago
  Spelling, not grammatical. (i.e. I think they meant "Principals")
  - ojbyrne 16y ago
    I did mean that, but I'm not sure whether using the wrong homonym should be classified as a spelling or grammatical mistake. It's spelled correctly, but is the wrong word.
    - run4yourlives 16y ago
      Good point. On review I think I agree with you. :-)
    - anthonyb 16y ago
      I'd classify it as a spelling error, similar to to/too/two and their/they're. They know the word, but not the right letters to make it.
- colanderman 16y ago
  For what it's worth it looks like Starling weren't the ones who wrote it: http://www.indiangeek.net/programmer-competency-matrix/ http://www.indiangeek.net/programmer-competency-matrix/ seems to be the original source as per other comments.

ojbyrne 16y ago

Not to mention that there's a grammatical error in the first sentence of the text on their front page - "Starling Software is currently dormant, as the principles are both deeply involved in projects that grew out of it." So they fail on that component (communication skills).

yaakov34 16y ago
Oh, they're bad at communication, all right, and not just because of some spelling error. Look at the description of their flagship product: http://www.starling-software.com/en/qam.html http://www.starling-software.com/en/qam.html What does it do? Who would use it? For what? I have absolutely no idea, and I don't think I'm the absolute dimmest light in the Christmas tree. They use totally general words like "component" without explaining what they mean to them in this context. A component could be an object which implements a specific API, or a set of files with version information attached, or whatever. I don't feel like I know anything about QAM after reading that page. And I don't feel like continuing to learn about it, either. Anyway, I do realize that Starling had nothing to do with submitting this to HN, but I still think they deserve some flameage for the general sense smugness and self-congratulation which one gets from their website, especially since those don't seem be backed up by any world-beating performance.
run4yourlives 16y ago
Spelling, not grammatical. (i.e. I think they meant "Principals")
- ojbyrne 16y ago
  I did mean that, but I'm not sure whether using the wrong homonym should be classified as a spelling or grammatical mistake. It's spelled correctly, but is the wrong word.
  - run4yourlives 16y ago
    Good point. On review I think I agree with you. :-)
  - anthonyb 16y ago
    I'd classify it as a spelling error, similar to to/too/two and their/they're. They know the word, but not the right letters to make it.
colanderman 16y ago
For what it's worth it looks like Starling weren't the ones who wrote it: http://www.indiangeek.net/programmer-competency-matrix/ http://www.indiangeek.net/programmer-competency-matrix/ seems to be the original source as per other comments.