7 ms·

How to Get Hired at Fog Creek, Part 1

60 points by gecko 17y ago

edw519 17y ago
"The easiest way to show off your brains is to have had good grades in school. Just put your GPA on your resume and you're done." Real bad litmus test. I know lots of people who had a 4.0 who, if you dropped them off in the woods, would have just died. OTOH, I know lots of others who were brilliant but too bored to care about grades. Coding a one loop bubble sort in hex blindfolded while juggling eggs, playing 12 games of chess, solving a 100 x 100 sudoku, providing an alternate solution to the 4 color theorem, teleporting tonights winning Powerball numbers, and cooking dinner would be a more applicable barometer.
- tghw 17y ago
  "I know lots of people who had a 4.0 who, if you dropped them off in the woods, would have just died." -- It's software development, not the army. "OTOH, I know lots of others who were brilliant but too bored to care about grades." -- Hence the whole second paragraph: "Of course, that's not the only way to demonstrate your intelligence. I know many incredibly smart people who just didn't do well in school. Maybe it just wasn't their thing, or they were working two jobs and didn't have time, or they dropped out to start their own company. If that's you, then you'll have to show me how bright you are. Do you solve really hard problems on a regular basis at work? Tell me about it. Did you apply to MENSA for the fun of it and get in? Impressive. Hold the record for creating the Sunday crossword puzzle with the fewest black squares? Awesome. Exceptional standardized test scores will even do in a pinch (though that might not be as widely accepted)." We're just screening applications, not making hiring decisions on the spot. If someone has great grades (and four other positive indicators) but are truly not that smart, we'll find out pretty quickly in the interviews. For people who are really bright but didn't have the grades, the burden is on them to show us how bright they are. If they don't, but pass on the other criteria, then they'll move on to the next stage. It's anything but a litmus test.
  - LogicHoleFlaw 17y ago
    Did you apply to MENSA for the fun of it and get in? Impressive. Egads. I was curious about MENSA and went to some meetings. A more self-congratulatory group of people I'd never met. I was offered membership but turned it down!
    - jongraehl 17y ago
      Some variant of the above sentiment is used more often to signal good taste and high intellect, than MENSA membership itself :)
    - TriinT 17y ago
      One in 50 people can join MENSA. One in 50,000 wants to.
- MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
  I think GPA is a better measure of "I can work inside a system and play by its rules" Like you I think it's a poor measure of "brains" but you can't get a high GPA and be a total slacker. I know plenty of people who were too bored to care about grades...and also too bored to care about the work assigned to them by a manager at their work.
  - derefr 17y ago
    This is very true. Perhaps, though, startups in their early stages should hire people with low GPAs, but who have some other proof of intelligence? If I want to really innovate, I'm going to hire people who not only think outside the box, but abhor going anywhere near it. 'course, these are the people that don't stay on as the company transitions from R&D to sales and maintenance.
    - philelly 17y ago
      i guess being stoned all semester is outside the box
    - wheels 17y ago
      We're early phase, and I realized recently that if I could hire any developer that I've worked with in the past that all of my top 3 (one of whom we recently hired) were college drop outs, and in general, I'd actually bias my decisions slightly towards those who had completed degrees. This surprised me a little.
    - MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
      In my (limited) experience, running an early stage startup is less about innovation and more about drive to get things done. Then again, I work with people who are good at what they do and fully invested in the project. Nobody is getting a salary (and probably won't for at least a year), so that tends to weed out the mediocre players.
  - azanar 17y ago
    I think GPA is a better measure of "I can work inside a system and play by its rules" Does having a high GPA indicate that this is what the person was trying to prove? Does it even suggest that following rules was the motivator that got them where they are? As I pointed out in my earlier comment, maybe the graduate's GPA was high due to motivations that had very little to do directly with wanting to achieve a high GPA or wanting to please other people. The meaning is ambiguous; as are the meanings of everything someone might rely on to assess someone's ability. You need context to figure out what each individual indicator means, and this includes the GPA; it might mean absolutely nothing, or it might be the thing that pulls two or three other indicators out of ambiguity and makes the true ability of the person become more believable.
- oldgregg 17y ago
  Unbelievable. The thing about fog creek is that they want highly competent technical engineers without any entrepreneur spirit. Joel is the leader and he needs code monkeys to carry out the work. People who make 4.0s are the exact kind of people they need-- discipline, reverence for authority, people pleasers-- people who won't rock the boat. For Fog Creek this is a great litmus test. Think I'm full of it? Watch their little movie they put together then tell me I'm not spot on. (I hope you enjoy pimple faced programmers verbally fellating joel spolsky) http://www.projectaardvark.com/movie/ http://www.projectaardvark.com/movie/ Incidentally, Google has a similar aesthetic, although not to the same degree. People who are drawn to startups are not usually the kind of people you want in a corporate structure.
  - tghw 17y ago
    Hey, I resent that...I didn't have that many pimples...
  - nostrademons 17y ago
    There're lots and lots of former startup founders currently working at Google. Andy Hertzfeld of Radius & General Magic. Joshua Schacter of del.icio.us. Brad Fitzpatrick of LiveJournal. Bunch of others whose employment and/or startups might not be known publicly. That doesn't even count the ones who end up at Google because it buys their companies. It's not just famous people too: at least 2 or 3 folks I work with regularly are former startup founders, not including myself. Seems to be the new career path for bright aspiring programmers whose startups fail: graduate from college, start a company, fold up company, work for Google.
    - jganetsk 17y ago
      I would suppose that these ex-founders (especially the ones with some fame like Josh Schacter) belong to an uber-class minority within Google, where they are given more freedom and respect then the average Googler.
  - bravura 17y ago
    I lost all respect for Joel Spolsky when I read this article: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/how-hard-could-it-be-thanks-or-no-thanks_Printer_Friendly.html?partner=fogcreek http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/how-hard-could-it-be-th... Summary: Intern comes up with a job sales board for Fog Greek, grosses $1m. Joel decides not to compensate him, arguing that it is difficult to measure the contribution of each individual. The whole article is sickening, because Joel tries so hard to contort reason and make it sound like he was being fair.
- philelly 17y ago
  the 'relevance of grades' argument never seems to die here. like any other measure of ability, the use of GPA has its limitations. the reason the debate continues, i suspect, is that a lot of people here got bad grades.
  - sp332 17y ago
    Anecdote: I went to a $40,000 / yr college and got a GPA-based "Presidential Scholarship" every semester. A friend of mine, who didn't really know what to do with college, got a 2-year degree in general ed from a state college. I can tell you that he's at least as smart and about 3x wiser than I am. He gets more out of his job, has a better social life, is in better shape, etc etc etc. So from my perspective, GPA is about 95% useless in real life.
    - jganetsk 17y ago
      How did you come up with this figure of 95% if you have a sample size of 1?
      - sp332 17y ago
        :) I did say "in my experience"! I also called the story out as an anecdote, not anything statistically useful. The 95% figure is an estimate based on lots of people I know, not just the one story.
      - aswanson 17y ago
        He qualified the statement by saying "from his perspective" which could be taken to mean "95% percent useless in his life" with a sample size of 1.
    - philelly 17y ago
      I think we agree completely that the use of GPA as a measure of ability is limited. To be fair, though, I never asserted that GPA would predict who would 'have a better social life' or who would be 'in better shape.' In fact, I might predict that these would be negatively correlated with GPA. Also, I'm not sure I understand your story: did your friend actually have low grades, or are you just saying he was highly successful after attending a less famous school? In any case, I hesitate to offer my own examples: I don't have a sufficiently large sample size, as I don't hang out with people who had low GPAs.
- brown9-2 17y ago
  Nevermind the fact that most employers don't check to see if the GPA you put on your resume is actually truthful.
- blasdel 17y ago
  Damn, I don't have a GPA! I could send away for a copy of my transcript: ~35 pages of course descriptions and narrative evaluations of me by my faculty, along with self-evaluations (missing would be my evaluations of my faculty, which go in their transcript)
  - req2 17y ago
    You sound like a "Great Books" kind of guy...
    - blasdel 17y ago
      Not http://stjohnscollege.edu http://stjohnscollege.edu as you've inferred, but http://evergreen.edu http://evergreen.edu
- rjurney 17y ago
  I'm deeply suspicious of good grades. I think, "Didn't you have projects that were more interesting than your studies?"
  - jganetsk 17y ago
    Not unless you had time for both. I definitely didn't have to spend as much time as my peers on Comp Sci homework, and had plenty of time left over for my own pursuits. The great programmers I respect easily got CS degrees without working too hard; you show up and submit your tests/projects using your self-acquired knowledge. You should also have a natural curiosity for the subject matter. I think this is why Google's strict GPA policies work for them.
  - robryan 17y ago
    What if you did have more interesting projects but focused more time on your studies? When your paying large amounts for a college education you want to make the most out of it.
  - gaius 17y ago
    If you're an undergrad then your full-time job is to get your degree. If not, then you probably shouldn't have gone to college in the first place... Why take on all that debt if you aren't going to take it seriously? PS I didn't know this when I was an undergrad.
    - mgrouchy 17y ago
      Or you could be me and work close to full time the entire time you are in university so you aren't in ridiculous debt when you leave. (that being said, I would have done much much better in my undergrad if I hadn't of done that)
      - gaius 17y ago
        Same here, I alternated between being a lifeguard and being a freelance coder and technical writer. Did a bit of studying in my free time... But you can earn money anytime, I shouldn't have been so impatient.
deleted 17y ago
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henning 17y ago
The question presents itself: why would someone that good want to work on project management software with such a funky user interface and oddball feature set?
- epall 17y ago
  That's the same sentiment I had. The software guys I've worked hated FogBugz so much they scared the crap out of our CEO. I watched Aardvark'd and once longed to work for The Great Fog Creek, but I've already moved onto bigger and better things.
  - gaius 17y ago
    In 15 years in the industry I have met many people who like to quote Joel Spolsky, but I have not come across one single person who actually uses a Fog Creek product. Kinda like lots of people have read ESR, but no-one is using his code...
    - gms 17y ago
      How are they so profitable then?
      - oldgregg 17y ago
        A few things to consider... 1. They have a stable base of corporate microsoft shops using fogbugz -- which is why none of us knows anybody using it. My guess is their other products make little if any revenue. 2. They don't pay most of their people very much. They probably only have a dozen or so people on staff full time and everyone else is an intern. 3. Their job board does pretty well. Quite a bit of passive $$$. Fog Creek seems like a stable and profitable business. That said, there are thousands of profitable small boutique software companies out there.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- aditya 17y ago
aswanson 17y ago
Can I get rich working there in a reasonable time frame? Otherwise, why should I give a shit how?
nostrademons 17y ago
I'm curious: how would people compare the prestige of working at Fog Creek vs. the prestige of working at Google? Or one of the other big Internet companies - Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, EBay, etc...? I remember Joel doing similar how-to-get-hired essays when I was in college. I was always like, "Pffft. Why would I want to work for a company that does bugtracking software?" Ended up taking a job at a financial software startup instead. I'm wondering if other people feel the same way or if I'm just a gigantic snob. (The two may not be mutually exclusive...)
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- Dilpil 17y ago
  To get to be part of an elite club which excludes others?
- brown9-2 17y ago
  I think that working at a company like Fog Creek or 37 Signals would be seen as highly prestigous, but only by a pretty limited audience: those that follow software development blogs. Whereas working at Google, pretty much everyone who has touched a computer is familiar with who Google is. So I guess it depends on what your intended audience is.
  - twoz 17y ago
    pretty much everyone who has touched a computer is familiar with who Google is And they'll also generally think you're somehow in charge of search and e-mail at Google. :) Kind of like having been in the Air Force and everyone asking you what kind of jet you piloted.
- aristus 17y ago
  Twain once said something like "The most sought-after prize is the envy of other men". It's natural to want "prestige", but chasing after it kind of misses the point of life, no? If you haven't done so, I recommend working for a small technology company with a strong engineering culture, staffed by smart & competent people who have nothing to prove. Worthwhile problems are fractal -- there's almost always more there if you keep digging.
mbenjaminsmith 17y ago
I've been on both sides of the hiring table in different professions (staffer, co-founder) and that article made my stomach turn. Anyone who puts up that much of a fuss lacks the courage to lead and manage people the right way - through inspiration. To the youngsters out there: the more difficult they make it seem, the less they actually have to offer.
rfreytag 17y ago
Creativity did not make the list of evaluation criteria.

60 points by gecko 17y ago

"The easiest way to show off your brains is to have had good grades in school. Just put your GPA on your resume and you're done." Real bad litmus test. I know lots of people who had a 4.0 who, if you dropped them off in the woods, would have just died. OTOH, I know lots of others who were brilliant but too bored to care about grades. Coding a one loop bubble sort in hex blindfolded while juggling eggs, playing 12 games of chess, solving a 100 x 100 sudoku, providing an alternate solution to the 4 color theorem, teleporting tonights winning Powerball numbers, and cooking dinner would be a more applicable barometer.

tghw 17y ago
"I know lots of people who had a 4.0 who, if you dropped them off in the woods, would have just died." -- It's software development, not the army. "OTOH, I know lots of others who were brilliant but too bored to care about grades." -- Hence the whole second paragraph: "Of course, that's not the only way to demonstrate your intelligence. I know many incredibly smart people who just didn't do well in school. Maybe it just wasn't their thing, or they were working two jobs and didn't have time, or they dropped out to start their own company. If that's you, then you'll have to show me how bright you are. Do you solve really hard problems on a regular basis at work? Tell me about it. Did you apply to MENSA for the fun of it and get in? Impressive. Hold the record for creating the Sunday crossword puzzle with the fewest black squares? Awesome. Exceptional standardized test scores will even do in a pinch (though that might not be as widely accepted)." We're just screening applications, not making hiring decisions on the spot. If someone has great grades (and four other positive indicators) but are truly not that smart, we'll find out pretty quickly in the interviews. For people who are really bright but didn't have the grades, the burden is on them to show us how bright they are. If they don't, but pass on the other criteria, then they'll move on to the next stage. It's anything but a litmus test.
- LogicHoleFlaw 17y ago
  Did you apply to MENSA for the fun of it and get in? Impressive. Egads. I was curious about MENSA and went to some meetings. A more self-congratulatory group of people I'd never met. I was offered membership but turned it down!
  - jongraehl 17y ago
    Some variant of the above sentiment is used more often to signal good taste and high intellect, than MENSA membership itself :)
  - TriinT 17y ago
    One in 50 people can join MENSA. One in 50,000 wants to.
MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
I think GPA is a better measure of "I can work inside a system and play by its rules" Like you I think it's a poor measure of "brains" but you can't get a high GPA and be a total slacker. I know plenty of people who were too bored to care about grades...and also too bored to care about the work assigned to them by a manager at their work.
- derefr 17y ago
  This is very true. Perhaps, though, startups in their early stages should hire people with low GPAs, but who have some other proof of intelligence? If I want to really innovate, I'm going to hire people who not only think outside the box, but abhor going anywhere near it. 'course, these are the people that don't stay on as the company transitions from R&D to sales and maintenance.
  - philelly 17y ago
    i guess being stoned all semester is outside the box
  - wheels 17y ago
    We're early phase, and I realized recently that if I could hire any developer that I've worked with in the past that all of my top 3 (one of whom we recently hired) were college drop outs, and in general, I'd actually bias my decisions slightly towards those who had completed degrees. This surprised me a little.
  - MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
    In my (limited) experience, running an early stage startup is less about innovation and more about drive to get things done. Then again, I work with people who are good at what they do and fully invested in the project. Nobody is getting a salary (and probably won't for at least a year), so that tends to weed out the mediocre players.
- azanar 17y ago
  I think GPA is a better measure of "I can work inside a system and play by its rules" Does having a high GPA indicate that this is what the person was trying to prove? Does it even suggest that following rules was the motivator that got them where they are? As I pointed out in my earlier comment, maybe the graduate's GPA was high due to motivations that had very little to do directly with wanting to achieve a high GPA or wanting to please other people. The meaning is ambiguous; as are the meanings of everything someone might rely on to assess someone's ability. You need context to figure out what each individual indicator means, and this includes the GPA; it might mean absolutely nothing, or it might be the thing that pulls two or three other indicators out of ambiguity and makes the true ability of the person become more believable.
oldgregg 17y ago
Unbelievable. The thing about fog creek is that they want highly competent technical engineers without any entrepreneur spirit. Joel is the leader and he needs code monkeys to carry out the work. People who make 4.0s are the exact kind of people they need-- discipline, reverence for authority, people pleasers-- people who won't rock the boat. For Fog Creek this is a great litmus test. Think I'm full of it? Watch their little movie they put together then tell me I'm not spot on. (I hope you enjoy pimple faced programmers verbally fellating joel spolsky) http://www.projectaardvark.com/movie/ http://www.projectaardvark.com/movie/ Incidentally, Google has a similar aesthetic, although not to the same degree. People who are drawn to startups are not usually the kind of people you want in a corporate structure.
- tghw 17y ago
  Hey, I resent that...I didn't have that many pimples...
- nostrademons 17y ago
  There're lots and lots of former startup founders currently working at Google. Andy Hertzfeld of Radius & General Magic. Joshua Schacter of del.icio.us. Brad Fitzpatrick of LiveJournal. Bunch of others whose employment and/or startups might not be known publicly. That doesn't even count the ones who end up at Google because it buys their companies. It's not just famous people too: at least 2 or 3 folks I work with regularly are former startup founders, not including myself. Seems to be the new career path for bright aspiring programmers whose startups fail: graduate from college, start a company, fold up company, work for Google.
  - jganetsk 17y ago
    I would suppose that these ex-founders (especially the ones with some fame like Josh Schacter) belong to an uber-class minority within Google, where they are given more freedom and respect then the average Googler.
- bravura 17y ago
  I lost all respect for Joel Spolsky when I read this article: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/how-hard-could-it-be-thanks-or-no-thanks_Printer_Friendly.html?partner=fogcreek http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/how-hard-could-it-be-th... Summary: Intern comes up with a job sales board for Fog Greek, grosses $1m. Joel decides not to compensate him, arguing that it is difficult to measure the contribution of each individual. The whole article is sickening, because Joel tries so hard to contort reason and make it sound like he was being fair.
philelly 17y ago
the 'relevance of grades' argument never seems to die here. like any other measure of ability, the use of GPA has its limitations. the reason the debate continues, i suspect, is that a lot of people here got bad grades.
- sp332 17y ago
  Anecdote: I went to a $40,000 / yr college and got a GPA-based "Presidential Scholarship" every semester. A friend of mine, who didn't really know what to do with college, got a 2-year degree in general ed from a state college. I can tell you that he's at least as smart and about 3x wiser than I am. He gets more out of his job, has a better social life, is in better shape, etc etc etc. So from my perspective, GPA is about 95% useless in real life.
  - jganetsk 17y ago
    How did you come up with this figure of 95% if you have a sample size of 1?
    - sp332 17y ago
      :) I did say "in my experience"! I also called the story out as an anecdote, not anything statistically useful. The 95% figure is an estimate based on lots of people I know, not just the one story.
    - aswanson 17y ago
      He qualified the statement by saying "from his perspective" which could be taken to mean "95% percent useless in his life" with a sample size of 1.
  - philelly 17y ago
    I think we agree completely that the use of GPA as a measure of ability is limited. To be fair, though, I never asserted that GPA would predict who would 'have a better social life' or who would be 'in better shape.' In fact, I might predict that these would be negatively correlated with GPA. Also, I'm not sure I understand your story: did your friend actually have low grades, or are you just saying he was highly successful after attending a less famous school? In any case, I hesitate to offer my own examples: I don't have a sufficiently large sample size, as I don't hang out with people who had low GPAs.
brown9-2 17y ago
Nevermind the fact that most employers don't check to see if the GPA you put on your resume is actually truthful.
blasdel 17y ago
Damn, I don't have a GPA! I could send away for a copy of my transcript: ~35 pages of course descriptions and narrative evaluations of me by my faculty, along with self-evaluations (missing would be my evaluations of my faculty, which go in their transcript)
- req2 17y ago
  You sound like a "Great Books" kind of guy...
  - blasdel 17y ago
    Not http://stjohnscollege.edu http://stjohnscollege.edu as you've inferred, but http://evergreen.edu http://evergreen.edu
rjurney 17y ago
I'm deeply suspicious of good grades. I think, "Didn't you have projects that were more interesting than your studies?"
- jganetsk 17y ago
  Not unless you had time for both. I definitely didn't have to spend as much time as my peers on Comp Sci homework, and had plenty of time left over for my own pursuits. The great programmers I respect easily got CS degrees without working too hard; you show up and submit your tests/projects using your self-acquired knowledge. You should also have a natural curiosity for the subject matter. I think this is why Google's strict GPA policies work for them.
- robryan 17y ago
  What if you did have more interesting projects but focused more time on your studies? When your paying large amounts for a college education you want to make the most out of it.
- gaius 17y ago
  If you're an undergrad then your full-time job is to get your degree. If not, then you probably shouldn't have gone to college in the first place... Why take on all that debt if you aren't going to take it seriously? PS I didn't know this when I was an undergrad.
  - mgrouchy 17y ago
    Or you could be me and work close to full time the entire time you are in university so you aren't in ridiculous debt when you leave. (that being said, I would have done much much better in my undergrad if I hadn't of done that)
    - gaius 17y ago
      Same here, I alternated between being a lifeguard and being a freelance coder and technical writer. Did a bit of studying in my free time... But you can earn money anytime, I shouldn't have been so impatient.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

henning 17y ago

The question presents itself: why would someone that good want to work on project management software with such a funky user interface and oddball feature set?

epall 17y ago
That's the same sentiment I had. The software guys I've worked hated FogBugz so much they scared the crap out of our CEO. I watched Aardvark'd and once longed to work for The Great Fog Creek, but I've already moved onto bigger and better things.
- gaius 17y ago
  In 15 years in the industry I have met many people who like to quote Joel Spolsky, but I have not come across one single person who actually uses a Fog Creek product. Kinda like lots of people have read ESR, but no-one is using his code...
  - gms 17y ago
    How are they so profitable then?
    - oldgregg 17y ago
      A few things to consider... 1. They have a stable base of corporate microsoft shops using fogbugz -- which is why none of us knows anybody using it. My guess is their other products make little if any revenue. 2. They don't pay most of their people very much. They probably only have a dozen or so people on staff full time and everyone else is an intern. 3. Their job board does pretty well. Quite a bit of passive $$$. Fog Creek seems like a stable and profitable business. That said, there are thousands of profitable small boutique software companies out there.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
aditya 17y ago

aswanson 17y ago

Can I get rich working there in a reasonable time frame? Otherwise, why should I give a shit how?

nostrademons 17y ago

I'm curious: how would people compare the prestige of working at Fog Creek vs. the prestige of working at Google? Or one of the other big Internet companies - Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, EBay, etc...? I remember Joel doing similar how-to-get-hired essays when I was in college. I was always like, "Pffft. Why would I want to work for a company that does bugtracking software?" Ended up taking a job at a financial software startup instead. I'm wondering if other people feel the same way or if I'm just a gigantic snob. (The two may not be mutually exclusive...)

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
Dilpil 17y ago
To get to be part of an elite club which excludes others?
brown9-2 17y ago
I think that working at a company like Fog Creek or 37 Signals would be seen as highly prestigous, but only by a pretty limited audience: those that follow software development blogs. Whereas working at Google, pretty much everyone who has touched a computer is familiar with who Google is. So I guess it depends on what your intended audience is.
- twoz 17y ago
  pretty much everyone who has touched a computer is familiar with who Google is And they'll also generally think you're somehow in charge of search and e-mail at Google. :) Kind of like having been in the Air Force and everyone asking you what kind of jet you piloted.
aristus 17y ago
Twain once said something like "The most sought-after prize is the envy of other men". It's natural to want "prestige", but chasing after it kind of misses the point of life, no? If you haven't done so, I recommend working for a small technology company with a strong engineering culture, staffed by smart & competent people who have nothing to prove. Worthwhile problems are fractal -- there's almost always more there if you keep digging.

mbenjaminsmith 17y ago

I've been on both sides of the hiring table in different professions (staffer, co-founder) and that article made my stomach turn. Anyone who puts up that much of a fuss lacks the courage to lead and manage people the right way - through inspiration. To the youngsters out there: the more difficult they make it seem, the less they actually have to offer.

rfreytag 17y ago

Creativity did not make the list of evaluation criteria.