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VP of Engineering - "best of the best" = no more than 12 years experience?
- chetanahuja 13y agoYeah obviously. Who wants to hire gross old people in their shiny new startup.
- switch33 13y agoLol, this is probably the reasoning.
- muench 13y agoAgile is only 12 years old [1], so it might be related to the old programmer joke about HR posting job ads that require 'x' years experience with 'y' year-old tech, for some x > y. But that's grasping at straws, and if that is the intention it's a really unfortunate way of putting it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development * edited to address the < / > mistake MaysonL pointed out. Thanks!
- fingerprinter 13y ago"agile methodologies" are certainly not only 12 years old. The Agile Manifesto coined the phrase "agile" in 2001 (read your link wikipedia page), but the ideas were around long, long before this.
- MaysonL 13y agoThe joke is actually only funny for x > y ;-)
- muench 13y agothanks, you're right. edited it now. I'd claim that I subconsciously 'corrected' it, but let's be honest: what good would a post about a typical HR error be without a typical programmer error!
- justinY 13y ago500friends founder/CEO here. Look at my team - 500friends.com/team. Most people are who you may consider to be "old." And we wouldn't be where we're at without them. We do not discriminate against age.
- freework 13y agoThis company has been looking for a VP of Engineering since at least last summer. I applied for this position back then. They got back to me with a ridiculous busy-work problem they wanted me to solve. I forgot then about them.
- justinY 13y agoIt has been no longer than 3 months...
- hga 13y agoThat's worse, it means you're running through them rather quickly....
- justinY 13y agoMy co-founder was previously the (only) VP of Engineering (and did a great job), but we mutually parted ways after the Series B. These things happen... tl;dr, we are not "running through" them.
- hga 13y agoYour earliest press releases are from 2 years ago. How can you have lost that "only" VP of Engineering who as your co-founder was part of the team back then, be recruiting for the position a year ago, and be recruiting for the position now, but this time it is only been for the last 3 months ... well, I suppose you could have just not actively tried to fill the position during the gap, but that at least suggests it's not really that important. And why didn't you mention that?
- justinY 13y agoThat's because he (bob tekiela) was at 500friends until may of 2013. In other words, op is lying/mistaken because we were not hiring for this role last year.
- tjbiddle 13y agoThe only reasoning I can come up with that could possibly support this is maybe they have the idea in mind that those with more than 12 years experience would be less able to adapt to newer ways of thinking?
- Jailbird 13y agoThat counts as ageist for me.
- justinY 13y ago500friends founder/CEO here. It's not that people with 12+ years of experience are not as good. We were trying to screen out candidates (many of them who are smart) but have been "managers" for so long that they can't get their hands dirty and solve issues themselves (something you have to do at a very small team). Don't take my word for it, 26% of people on our team are older than 38. If you're bored, check out some of their bios at 500friends.com/team Admittedly however, this was not clear in our post, and it has since been edited. Thanks!!
- nilkn 13y agoMaybe they assume someone with 12+ years of experience would demand a higher salary than they can offer? They might identify such a candidate with a C-level position like CTO more than a VP position. I don't really know; I'm just trying to come up with a non-ageist explanation. It might not be any different from how someone with 5+ years of experience normally wouldn't be considered for junior roles. Or it might just be ageist.
- rhizome 13y agoSo...put a top salary number in the ad? If this is a hard question, maybe they should be asking it in their interviews instead of linked-lists.
- qnk 13y agoI am not a lawyer, but is this not illegal in the U.S.? Checking The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission website[1], it says under the "PROHIBITION OF AGE DISCRIMINATION" section: (e) Printing or publication of notice or advertisement indicating preference, limitation, etc. [1] http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/adea.cfm http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/adea.cfm
- clone1018 13y agoSeems like they're breaking the law to me, but it's not completely black and white. In the odd chance it would happen, wouldn't saying "20+ years of experience required", prevent anyone younger then 20 years from joining the company?
- dlgeek 13y agoActually, in the US, discrimination against younger people isn't illegal - it's only illegal to discriminate the other way 'round.
- clone1018 13y agoOh, did not know. Thanks!
- hkmurakami 13y agoand iirc only applies to 40+ years of age or something along those lines.
- frostmatthew 13y ago40 is correct http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm
- frankc 13y agoIt is actually legal to discriminate against young people. It's only illegal to discriminate against people over 40. http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm Also, requiring experience is reasonable anyway since its easy to make a case about why it's required to do the work. I'd dying to here what kind of BS hand-waving argument could be constructed for why having too much experience prevents you from doing the work.
- KevinEldon 13y agoOne way to interpret this is that the Agile Manifesto was published in 2001, so although it's possible you managed agile teams before 2001 it's unlikely, or if you've been successfully managing agile teams since before the manifesto and you're interested in a startup... what's wrong w/ you (seriously... if you're crushing it w/ agile for 12 years and now enterprises are all scrum-happy and you aren't making boatloads of cash consulting why are you considering a startup... oh, you're a serial startup guy... that's cool then you won't give a shit about some nonsense in a job posting, you'll work your network to get an interview or contact the founders directly and convince them you're worth talking to... and if you can't do that you're probably not VP material. No?) One way to respond to this kind of job posting is "fuck that, I'm not going to waste my time w/ that shit".
- kyro 13y agoThat was quite a performance of mental gymnastics.
- KevinEldon 13y agoI may have ingested performance enhancing liquids.
- epoxyhockey 13y agoI think that your analysis is great. However, I'm not confident that Justin put as much thought into the posting.
- KevinEldon 13y agoI do not know this startup. But I suspect your spot on... this feels like the kernel of a good idea, a way to filter out the wrong kind of application (not necessarily too old) and it's being interpreted (or misinterpreted). I honestly hope the best for this startup and hope some woman or man qualified to help them gets an interview... I suspect, for top candidates, the language will be awkward (but maybe top candidates... not guys like me... see through that).
- NelsonMinar 13y agoshhh, you're not supposed to say the "no old people" part out loud.
- melbourne_mat 13y agoThis must be the ageism that everyone's been talking about. The whole team is probably under 30. The kids will never learn!
- el_fuser 13y agoNot only is it blatantly ageist... It's stupid. They want someone that has been building engineering organizations for 5-12 years, after having been an individual contributor. Then, they want you to drop back into an individual contributor role. At least initially. Wink wink nudge nudge.
- emidln 13y agoIt's not ageist. It doesn't say People who are 50 need not apply. From reading this job posting, someone who is 80, worked as a mechanic, a waiter, a clerk, and then picked up some newfangled technology might qualify. Besides the whole Agile not being codified for more than 12 years thing, if you've been out of the loop managing for 12 years, they say they don't want you. Part of the process apparently involves showing that your technical skills are still there.
- el_fuser 13y agoAs i posted above... Lightweight processes were discussed as alternatives to waterfall way back in the 90s during my software engineering courses. "Rapid application development" and RAtional unified process were the "hot" lightweight methodologies when I started work in 1996. Scrum has been with us since 1995. And yes, it's blatantly ageist... It falls under the disparate impact provision: "In addition to prohibiting intentional discrimination against older workers (known as “disparate treatment”), the ADEA prohibits practices that, although facially neutral with regard to age, have the effect of harming older workers more than younger workers (known as “disparate impact”), unless the employer can show that the practice is based on an RFOA."
- justinY 13y agoThank you sir. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6043188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6043188
- ramchip 13y ago500friends, 42floors, 37signals... it's like Yahoo handlenames of the past, but for companies.
- felipebueno 13y ago500px
- michaelochurch 13y ago83iq... where there are more PMs than products and executives outnumber engineers! 19yearsold... with free dinner after 8:00, unlimited vacation (subject to managerial approval) and equity (at-the-money options on 0.02%, subject to vesting and cliff)!
- logn 13y ago39andUnder
- faddotio 13y agoxX81Buddies69Xx.io
- coldcode 13y agoIt's Count von Count's favorite kind of company.
- DannyBee 13y agoCould be worse, could be xbox live user names.
- tomphoolery 13y agoOnly18 [NSFW] did it before all these suckers. Truly, a pioneer of start-up branding.
- michaelochurch 13y agoIt actually makes sense. It's not about age. Middle management has an expiration date. If you've been a middle manager for 15 years, that's bad bad bad. (Being an IC for 15 years is respectable; but once you move into management, you should make director in 5 years and VP in no less than 10.) Programming has an ageism problem largely because it's run by career managers (who think all of us want to be them-- and we don't); engineers themselves aren't ageist. Management is where the ageism comes from and it's even worse in their world. It's not that they care about age so much as they want to avoid hiring terminal middle managers, and I can't blame them for the latter. This fact has absolutely nothing to do with age, but terminal middle managers are toxic.
- demachina 13y agoYou can be fairly confident there some startups out there founding by 20 somethings, populated by 20 somethings, who think having someone over 30, or certainly over 40, on their team or even in their office would be akin to the plague. They would probably place them in the same camp as their parents. I totally understand why coders like Agile, hey I like it because hacking code is the fun part :) Its also kind of a good fit for the app store era, where you throw something out there and see if its sticks before you actually develop most of it. Not entirely sure its actually a good way to develop nontrivial software.
- kamaal 13y agoThe biggest problem with age is, its not static. If in your 20's you feel, some one over 30's is a plague. You have a big reason to be worried, because you will be in your 30's in less than 10 years. That's too less time for comfort.
- justinY 13y agoHello sir. 500friends founder/CEO here. It's not that people with 12+ years of experience are not as good. We were trying to screen out candidates (many of them who are smart) but have been "managers" for so long that they can't get their hands dirty and solve issues themselves (something you have to do at a very small team). Don't take my word for it, 26% of people on our team are older than 38. If you're bored, check out their bios at 500friends.com/team Admittedly however, this was not clear in our post, and it has since been edited. Thanks!!
- jbae29 13y agoIt appears to say that they want (ideally) someone with 5-12 years of experience managing a team, after a successful career as an individual contributor. To me, that implies that they don't someone who has been just a manager for the last twenty years. So it's possible that you could have been a developer for twenty years and then a manager for ten years and still be within their ideal range. Considering the CEO is about 24 years old, it's hard to believe that that is the case, though it is possible.
- justinY 13y agoYES, YOU ARE CORRECT, THANK YOU. And my team is very senior - check them out @ 500friends.com/team. We definitely value experience at 500friends.
- kenjackson 13y agoThis posting is so bad and offensive, I hold it against the leadership team of this company. I certainly would think less of someone if someone else mentioned, "Oh they were on the leadership team at 500friends".
- justinY 13y ago500friends founder/CEO here. Look at my team - 500friends.com/team. Most people are who you may consider to be "old." And we wouldn't be where we're at without them. We do not discriminate against age. What we meant is that we're looking for someone who has coded in the past decade. Someone that has been managing 1,000 people at Oracle may not be the right fit for a company of our stage. Make sense?
- kenjackson 13y agoHi Justin. It makes sense, but why didn't you say something more like that to begin with? Something like "Active development skills are part of the hiring criteria". You already mention doing Ruby development -- someone who hasn't coded in a decade, probably doesn't have much Ruby experience. It just seems odd that of all the possible ways to ask for what you describe above, you choose arguably the most offensive and least effective way to do so. And I think as a marketing company, you should know better. The message matters -- not just the intent. Seriously, think about a better way to phrase the requirement. There are several preferable ways to phrase the question (not just from a legal perspective, but even in terms of simply capturing the pool of candidates you desire).
- justinY 13y agoYou do have a point sir.
- sytelus 13y agoNot sure why "best of the best" would be so inclined to join a company that has mission to help marketers (primarily retailers) increase their customer lifetime value.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- brown9-2 13y agoSomewhere out there is a great 30 year old who started working at 18 that this dumb company is missing out on.
- wheaties 13y agoI work with a few of them actually. I loved college but these guys were cutting their teeth on tech when I was cutting mine on beer pong. All of them are too smart to ever think about a job description like that.
- justinY 13y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6043188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6043188
- bjpcjp 13y agoSpeaking on behalf of a LOT of people - F 500friends and the under-30 horse they rode in on.
- justinY 13y agoBrian, In our original job post, we had specified that the ideal candidate would, "not have more than 12 years of MANAGEMENT experience." We UNDERSTAND that this could be misunderstood to indicate that we do not value experienced people. As you can see from the seniority in our team however, this is far from the truth. The intent here was to indicate that we are looking for a "hands-on" VP of Engineering. Someone who has coded in the last decade and can solve issues themselves (rather than asking their engineering manager to then delegate it to a developer :). Don't take my word for it, check out the people who work at my company - 500friends.com/team. 50%+ are 30+, and 25%+ are 38+
- bjpcjp 13y agoUpdate Justin, thanks for the private reply as well. Props for the consistent and genuine efforts at damage control.
- far33d 13y agoCrap. I have 11 years experience doing some pretty awesome shit. I guess this is the last year I can get a legit job in a startup.
- yen223 13y agoJust tell them you have 1 year experience 11 times.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- fingerprinter 13y agoThis is totally off topic, and might be considered a rant, but I see this from time-to-time in startup land. Not understanding titles. First, this is for a "vp of engineering" that is "hands on". Are you really looking for an architect that codes? Perhaps a Sr. Engineer/Team lead? Do the engineers directly report to this "vp of engineering"? What happens when the team gets to big? Second, you are locking yourself into something prematurely. If you want someone hands on with management experience and capacity to grow into a future leader, state that and start looking. Make your interview quick on the technical assessment, heavy on the social and ask "what would you do in ..." or "how would you handle this ..." type of questions. See if the person has 1. experience 2. common sense or 3. good intuition on process/people. Lastly, what does the rest of the company look like when the VP of Engineering clearly has an inflated title. Are all the C level/VP level people equally inflated? Anyway, sorry for the rant. It seems a common occurrence in Startupsville to see people running around with titles that mean nothing for the sake of having the title. "Oh, cool. I'm the VP of engineering at blah blah". "nice, what do you do everyday." "Oh, you know, code reviews". Whatever.
- jacques_chester 13y agoMichael O'Church observed that if you're at or near the ground floor of a startup, titles are easier to get than money or equity. Which seems harmless, but if and when money starts flowing, something primitive in the status=money&equity hindbrain clicks and such a title makes it easier to negotiate for a better deal.
- bgilroy26 13y agoI agree, an organization that views titles as cheap/free either does not have the imagination to forsee the scenario you describe or they do not seriously expect to grow.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- kamaal 13y ago>>First, this is for a "vp of engineering" that is "hands on". Are you really looking for an architect that codes? Sorry but why can't a VP of engineering be somebody who should code(even if occasionally) or some who could be competent at a code review. Its precisely this kind of attitude that gives ammunition to the MBA culture of appointing people who are clueless about their current job to manage the best people under them. The net result is getting people appointed who know nothing about the people they managing, or the line of work. And just take blanket common sense based decision which most of the times are wrong with regards to the domain they lead. Regardless of who you are- architect, VP or whatever fancy title. If you claim to be the leader of a group of people with some specific skills you should be somebody who at the very least has mastered those skills. According to me anybody who claims to lead a group must be the best among that group, in the job that group performs.
- geuis 13y agoThis is going to probably bite me in the ass because I'm looking for work at the moment and occasionally apply to interesting YC companies but since this has come up, I'm going to share my story here because of the negative experience I had with the company in question. I had a phone screen with 500friends recently. They were late calling me, and the person I was scheduled to talk with wasn't even on the call. They had pulled some poor engineer off of whatever he was doing, shoved my resume in front of him, and said "go". The list of things that our "interview" contained: 1) Late in calling me at our scheduled time. 2) Scheduled person was not present on our interview call. 3) Engineer that was put on the call was ill-prepared for the conversation. 4) Questions asked of me were a combination of very basic and others being completely unrelated to the nature of the position being interviewed for. 5) The scheduled person appeared at the end of the call barely long enough to say his name before hanging up on me. 6) Hung up on me suddenly. #6 was what really got me. It was literally, "Hi this is <x>, we're out of time, click." If you advertise a position as requiring a certain set of skills, then ask prospective employees about those skills! Go through their experiences and see if they're a good engineer outside of the narrow scope of "solves logic puzzles well". You might be surprised that someone who doesn't normally write linked lists in javascript or implement 2500 year old prime-solving algorithms on a weekly basis actually has skills and experience to contribute. My personal recommendation for anyone considering 500friends is to skip over them. There's much better companies more deserving of your time and consideration, and you'll certainly be treated better. ## Just to add on, I don't have a problem with logic problems. But too many people only ask them and don't do real interviews. Yes, I can do linked lists in javascript. Does that tell you anything useful about what kind of engineer I am? No, it doesn't.
- rdouble 13y agoNot to excuse that sort of behavior, but this is a pretty typical HR experience in the Bay Area. Late calls, no-shows, awkward questions, either too easy or too hard, abrupt endings, obviously haven't read the resume, etc. Happens all the time, unfortunately.
- speeder 13y agoI had a interview failed like that from Amazon... Granted, I think it was accidental on their part (ie: the person that interviewed me was newbie at Amazon himself and quite lost, but seemly the person that was going to interview me had a serious problem of sorts and could not do it)
- abhishekg 13y agoCould also just be a publicity stunt
- zpk 13y agoHey right over here everyone!!! This is called ageism. If you write code and you are over 35, you are toast. Yes even you the "above average coder"...done and done. Now wait till that immigration bill passes, make 150k? GOOD ___ing BYE.
- krapp 13y agoIf you write code and you are over 35, you are toast. In SV, maybe. Hopefully not so much elsewhere or I'm gonna have a hard time paying off my student loans...
- zpk 13y agoI hate the fact you have to say that...it pisses me off to hear this. I was lucky I had minimal loans, and school was 1/2 the cost. If I can give a word of advice, spend less on car #1 and attack that loan, pay it off. Get to 0 debt.
- trimbo 13y agoIt's not even true in SV.
- zpk 13y agoThis job aside, ageism is 100% prevalent in our industry. Visa program has been hijacked and have subverted the career engineer.
- 13y ago
- hardwaresofton 13y agoWhat if we gave them the benefit of the doubt, and they were posting "no more than 12 years" because they want someone who's seen what happens but not someone who is steeped in it? Someone who is familiar with the problems but hasn't dealt with it so long that they are still naively excited about trying to change it? For example, if x guy has been doing TPS reports for 12 years,maybe they are figuring that he has already just adjusted to a gotta-do-my-TPS-reports mindset? just giving some benefit of the doubt
- justinY 13y agoThank you sir. my response here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6043188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6043188 Justin (500friends founder/CEO)
- justinY 13y agoThe reason for this is that if you haven't been coding (just managing) for 12+ years...you probably are not "hands-on" enough for a company of our stage. We have gotten a lot of very smart but "big company" people who had applied for this position. Sorry for the confusion however, most of our team is actually MUCH holder than the typical start-up: 500friends.com/team. We may be a lot of things but are definitely not ageist.
- el_fuser 13y agoBefore you edit much further: We want someone who has less than 12 years of MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE. The reason is that if you haven't been coding for 12+ years...you probably are not "hands-on" enough This arbitrary cutoff makes absolutely no sense. I'd like to see your quantification of skill drop off per year of management. If what you are wanting is a hands-on technical manager, then you need to say so. And it shouldn't matter if the person has been hands on for 5 years or 20. But I feel I'm being a little too generous regarding your motives here.
- justinY 13y agothis has caused so many misinterpretations that I have edited it out of the post completely... But essentially, the ideal candidate was someone who was CODING 5-12 years ago...
- alternize 13y agoyou made the job ad look pretty bad now to people reading it with out knowning the first version... Note: Any notion that 500friends is ageist is a complete fabrication. This can be validated by looking at our team (link). really? this is how you chose to start your job ad now? that sounds so desperate, i'd never apply - not saying that i would have before, sorry :)
- el_fuser 13y agoAhhh. That makes a helluva lot more sense.
- deleted 13y ago
- andrewcooke 13y agoit seems to have been removed (the 12 years part) btw. i saw it earlier. perhaps it was a joke - agile manifesto was published 12 years ago? (an argument for this is that 12 years is a strange number to use otherwise). [edit] and now there's a broken link on the front page saying that 26% of their team is older than 38. i hate to say it but (1) i told you so (2) do people lose their sense of humour with age? (3) i am 46 myself...
- mhewett 13y agoI had an interview like this at Willow Garage about 5 years ago. The interviewer said he would call at 8:30am. He called at 8:54 and sounded like he'd had about 2 hours of sleep. Then he said he had a 9:00 meeting and would call me back at 12:30pm. He called about 12:55 and proceeded with a lackluster interview during which he confused knowledge representation with graphics programming. Perversely, the interview made me want to join Willow just to see the train wreck in progress. (In their defense they have produced some good robotics platforms since then.)