7 ms·

The company I worked for in the past, its founder was good friends with a CS college professor. And I'm told the founder asked the prof. if there were any parti

by clicks 14y ago

The company I worked for in the past, its founder was good friends with a CS college professor. And I'm told the founder asked the prof. if there were any particular students who were "relentlessly good", and then the founder would go full-force to get them. I got to work with one of the guys who was hired this way... ohh boy was he something. The most important lesson I got out of that was there are students in B-tier schools that easily are more capable than A-tier schools any day of the week -- I suspect the reason the founder of the company took this approach was that you'd get workers who're extremely capable, but would accept a lower salary than MIT grads are expected to (because, yes, at some point I asked the guy how much he was making and I remember my jaw just dropped on the floor at how little the amount he said was).

prezjordan 14y ago
As a B-tier school student looking for a silicon valley internship, this is extremely comforting to hear.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- te_chris 14y ago
  That you'll make less money than people with the same skill set?
  - prezjordan 14y ago
    No, that our resumes aren't always thrown out.
    - miloshadzic 14y ago
      I've never hired anyone nor been employed at a Silicon Valley company but this isn't banking so don't worry too much about people throwing out your resume because of where you went to school.
      - mratzloff 14y ago
        Yeah, a CS degree isn't judged the same way an MBA is.
- rzendacott 14y ago
  As a C or D-tier school student, I'm jealous :p
  - pseut 14y ago
    Not aimed at you specifically, but in no particular order... * Fill out your profile * List your interesting projects * Have interesting projects * Expect to be asked in a job interview, "so, what's your username on hacker news/stack overflow/whatever else" and post accordingly. (statements that are dumb in retrospect are fine; being an asshole all the time isn't). Again, in no way aimed at you specifically; but I'm constantly reading comments about job search and thinking, "I wonder what he/she is all about", click on their profile and... nothing.
- undershirt 14y ago
  I come from a no-tier satellite school, and I applied to two different startups in the valley. I did research and different internships, and had a github portfolio. I made it to a 4th and final interview, where they unfortunately decided I wasn't a good fit. Point is, they'll definitely look at you if you show them a decent portfolio.
sharkweek 14y ago
I don't have a technical education so I'm not sure what differentiates here-- could I get some examples of A versus B tiered schools (besides the obvious A schools like MIT/Stanford)
- clicks 14y ago
  Purdue, Duke, Vanderbilt and so on I would consider B-tier. I went to a B-tier school. Interestingly, I recently learned that one of my smartest friends only applied to one school (Stanford) and got rejected, and afterward applied to the school I went to because it was only 10 miles away from where he lived. While we're on the subject, one other thing -- There's a lot of Russians, Indians etc. who recently came here and have poor English, and so a lot of people just look past them. But a lot of them are the most persevering and focused folks you'll ever meet, and in my experiences they learn English quickly enough anyway (considering they got to America before they were 15 years old or so).
  - notaddicted 14y ago
    The way I'd define it in terms of engineering schools: A-Tier: International reputation for engineering B-Tier: The school is known internationally (or nationally in the U.S.) but not specifically for engineering If you're at a B-Tier school you'll probably notice a lot of your professors did their PhD at an A-Tier school. I say this with the caveat that obviously all manners of university ranking are highly contentious, fluid, and usually say more about the ranker than the ranked.
  - Xcelerate 14y ago
    Purdue is B-tier? It's ranked top 10 in both undergrad and grad school (we're talking about engineering, of course).
    - argonaut 14y ago
      Tiers are highly subjective. I know many will disagree with tiering. But Purdue is at the very least a tier below A. I'm speaking of undergrad. We at least know it's not A tier (Harvard Princeton Stanford MIT, I think I'm missing a few). Or if you want to get even more resolution, it's not necessarily A- tier either (Berkeley, "lower" Ivies, etc.)
cesarpereira 14y ago
This is exactly what I've done over the past several years with great results. I stayed in constant contact with my old college professor (we play a sport at the same club) at a school none of you have ever heard of in the Chicago suburbs. The top CS student(s) at small schools can have extremely high potential. When you combine this with investing time in candidates via a good internship or apprenticeship program the results can be spectacular. When you are outside SV it doesn't take much to make your internship program stand out by letting your interns do full stack development on actual applications that ship. You need to invest the time on training/mentoring/pairing to make it work though.

by clicks 14y ago

prezjordan 14y ago

As a B-tier school student looking for a silicon valley internship, this is extremely comforting to hear.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
te_chris 14y ago
That you'll make less money than people with the same skill set?
- prezjordan 14y ago
  No, that our resumes aren't always thrown out.
  - miloshadzic 14y ago
    I've never hired anyone nor been employed at a Silicon Valley company but this isn't banking so don't worry too much about people throwing out your resume because of where you went to school.
    - mratzloff 14y ago
      Yeah, a CS degree isn't judged the same way an MBA is.
rzendacott 14y ago
As a C or D-tier school student, I'm jealous :p
- pseut 14y ago
  Not aimed at you specifically, but in no particular order... * Fill out your profile * List your interesting projects * Have interesting projects * Expect to be asked in a job interview, "so, what's your username on hacker news/stack overflow/whatever else" and post accordingly. (statements that are dumb in retrospect are fine; being an asshole all the time isn't). Again, in no way aimed at you specifically; but I'm constantly reading comments about job search and thinking, "I wonder what he/she is all about", click on their profile and... nothing.
undershirt 14y ago
I come from a no-tier satellite school, and I applied to two different startups in the valley. I did research and different internships, and had a github portfolio. I made it to a 4th and final interview, where they unfortunately decided I wasn't a good fit. Point is, they'll definitely look at you if you show them a decent portfolio.

sharkweek 14y ago

I don't have a technical education so I'm not sure what differentiates here-- could I get some examples of A versus B tiered schools (besides the obvious A schools like MIT/Stanford)

clicks 14y ago
Purdue, Duke, Vanderbilt and so on I would consider B-tier. I went to a B-tier school. Interestingly, I recently learned that one of my smartest friends only applied to one school (Stanford) and got rejected, and afterward applied to the school I went to because it was only 10 miles away from where he lived. While we're on the subject, one other thing -- There's a lot of Russians, Indians etc. who recently came here and have poor English, and so a lot of people just look past them. But a lot of them are the most persevering and focused folks you'll ever meet, and in my experiences they learn English quickly enough anyway (considering they got to America before they were 15 years old or so).
- notaddicted 14y ago
  The way I'd define it in terms of engineering schools: A-Tier: International reputation for engineering B-Tier: The school is known internationally (or nationally in the U.S.) but not specifically for engineering If you're at a B-Tier school you'll probably notice a lot of your professors did their PhD at an A-Tier school. I say this with the caveat that obviously all manners of university ranking are highly contentious, fluid, and usually say more about the ranker than the ranked.
- Xcelerate 14y ago
  Purdue is B-tier? It's ranked top 10 in both undergrad and grad school (we're talking about engineering, of course).
  - argonaut 14y ago
    Tiers are highly subjective. I know many will disagree with tiering. But Purdue is at the very least a tier below A. I'm speaking of undergrad. We at least know it's not A tier (Harvard Princeton Stanford MIT, I think I'm missing a few). Or if you want to get even more resolution, it's not necessarily A- tier either (Berkeley, "lower" Ivies, etc.)

cesarpereira 14y ago

This is exactly what I've done over the past several years with great results. I stayed in constant contact with my old college professor (we play a sport at the same club) at a school none of you have ever heard of in the Chicago suburbs. The top CS student(s) at small schools can have extremely high potential. When you combine this with investing time in candidates via a good internship or apprenticeship program the results can be spectacular. When you are outside SV it doesn't take much to make your internship program stand out by letting your interns do full stack development on actual applications that ship. You need to invest the time on training/mentoring/pairing to make it work though.