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Funny how the FAANG companies never make open source work a requirement, but every once in a while you get a recruiter reaching out from AcmeStartup, having jus

Funny how the FAANG companies never make open source work a requirement, but every once in a while you get a recruiter reaching out from AcmeStartup, having just raised their Series A, listing requirements that boil down to: * Must be a rock star, experienced developer with at least 100 years experience, but also not too old * Must have previous experience as lead developer of open projects such as Postgres, Linux, LibreOffice or similar, in addition to full time employment * Must be willing to work for significant below market wages in exchange for a lottery ticket that might be worth billions

mtnGoat 5y ago
all of the ones i know of that did this, ended up hiring some guy that had very strange expectations of what code should look like, coded the company into a corner and the whole thing flopped. ive now had to come in and replace two of these types, rewrite the code and get the company functioning once scale started to happen. ive found that often those with really impressive resume(like the over funded startups like), have a very limited skill set making them not the best candidates for lead positions anyhow.
- mesozoic 5y ago
  Then they have early equity, get rich after you fix it, and everyone thinks they're smart.
  - mtnGoat 5y ago
    exactly! the CTO that replaced me, sure thinks he is cool. but i know the code base hasnt changed much and i discovered my SU ssh keys were still working 5 years later. but i bet he got a lot less equity then i walked from.
chrisseaton 5y ago
> Funny how the FAANG companies never make open source work a requirement When I got rejected from Google the feedback was I should do more open source work.
- RobRivera 5y ago
  they gave you feedback?
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    After I asked yes. It was given in-person not formally in writing.
  - kyawzazaw 5y ago
    Salesforce gave me feedback
- vkou 5y ago
  It's a non-commital, actionable, non-specific, diplomatic answer, that is a nicer way of saying: "Practice more." If an interviewee reached out to me for feedback, and I weren't comfortable giving honest feedback[1], that's probably what I would tell them. [1] There is no reason I should ever be comfortable giving honest feedback, every bit of interviewer training anyone has ever taken will tell you as much.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > It's a non-commital, actionable, non-specific, diplomatic answer, that is a nicer way of saying: "Practice more." Yeah it didn't even make sense so I'm sure it was a generic 'you're not good enough' answer. I had hundreds of thousands of lines in a major open source project at the time. Not sure I could really do any more anyway!
deleted 5y ago
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mtnGoat 5y ago

all of the ones i know of that did this, ended up hiring some guy that had very strange expectations of what code should look like, coded the company into a corner and the whole thing flopped. ive now had to come in and replace two of these types, rewrite the code and get the company functioning once scale started to happen. ive found that often those with really impressive resume(like the over funded startups like), have a very limited skill set making them not the best candidates for lead positions anyhow.

mesozoic 5y ago
Then they have early equity, get rich after you fix it, and everyone thinks they're smart.
- mtnGoat 5y ago
  exactly! the CTO that replaced me, sure thinks he is cool. but i know the code base hasnt changed much and i discovered my SU ssh keys were still working 5 years later. but i bet he got a lot less equity then i walked from.

chrisseaton 5y ago

> Funny how the FAANG companies never make open source work a requirement When I got rejected from Google the feedback was I should do more open source work.

RobRivera 5y ago
they gave you feedback?
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  After I asked yes. It was given in-person not formally in writing.
- kyawzazaw 5y ago
  Salesforce gave me feedback
vkou 5y ago
It's a non-commital, actionable, non-specific, diplomatic answer, that is a nicer way of saying: "Practice more." If an interviewee reached out to me for feedback, and I weren't comfortable giving honest feedback[1], that's probably what I would tell them. [1] There is no reason I should ever be comfortable giving honest feedback, every bit of interviewer training anyone has ever taken will tell you as much.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > It's a non-commital, actionable, non-specific, diplomatic answer, that is a nicer way of saying: "Practice more." Yeah it didn't even make sense so I'm sure it was a generic 'you're not good enough' answer. I had hundreds of thousands of lines in a major open source project at the time. Not sure I could really do any more anyway!

deleted 5y ago

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