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Thank HN: You guys helped me land my dream job.
I wanted to send out a quick letter of appreciation to the HN community for helping me make a connection with an awesome company, who later made me an offer, which I happily accepted.
Last month, I posted my resume on the "Who wants to be hired?" thread [1], and was contacted by several companies, many of which were relevant to what I was looking for, both in a company and in a position.
After a few rounds of interviews, one of those companies, Kaggle [2], decided to make me an offer, and within a couple of days, I accepted. Not only do I get to work with an awesome team on a great product, but I get to do it all from home. And, I get to travel to the great San Francisco a few times a year and meet face-to-face with the folks I will be working with.
My last day with my previous company was Friday, and I will be joining Kaggle two weeks from today. I will be spending this time off building my dream setup in my new office upstairs.
The main reason I posted this was just as a thanks to those that allowed that thread, and those that helped keep the thread active.
The secondary reason was to hopefully hear some success stories others may have had from the thread.
The third reason was to let others know that the thread was successful, and that I see value in it as a recurring whoishiring thread, benefiting others in the HN community looking for a good fit.
The fourth reason was to encourage those of you looking to get hired to post in this month's thread [3], as it may very well help connect you with your next opportunity.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7685170
[2] https://www.kaggle.com
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7833250
- hoboon 12y agocongrats! :D
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- jlt 12y agoCongratulations! It's good to see people getting results from the "Who wants to be hired?" threads!
- simonhamp 12y agoGreat post! And congratulations. Hope it goes well!
- morewillie 12y agoCongrats!
- grayrest 12y agoI had a similar experience. I thought "eh, why not?" and got a surprising number of high quality leads. I started a remote working contract for a group in London on the 12th and it's been working quite well.
- antr 12y agoCongrats! Lets hope more people land their dream job via HN.
- visakanv 12y agoCongratulations! Work hard, and remember this if you ever find yourself going through a rough patch or taking things for granted. Kick butt!
- jader201 12y agoDefinitely good advice, thanks. It'll be nice to have this to remember this opportunity, for sure.
- gs7 12y agoI agree that the Who Wants To Be Hired thread is valuable and helpful. I was a bit late to the party, but I still had 4 companies and 2 recruiters contact me, one of which turned into an on-site interview at a YC company. I would definitely love to see this thread continue to be posted every month.
- jimwalsh 12y agoCongrats and good luck at the new job!
- lbacaj 12y agoFirst off, Congrats! Secondly, I didn't know those things actually worked so I never bothered posting so good to see that they do.
- rdudek 12y agoMe too. Now I'm tempted to post one too, although I'm more of a sys-admin type person and not really a developer (though I am learning!).
- numlocked 12y agoCongrats! I'm a former Kaggle employee and it is an incredible place to work.
- jader201 12y agoThanks, that's great to hear!
- jacquesm 12y agoThat's the best kind of endorsement any company can get. Kudos for taking the time out to say something positive about a former employer, normally whenever people make an effort to talk about former employers it is only in a negative sense.
- aaronblohowiak 12y agoFor immediate happiness, I find the direct manager more important than the company. Besides my current employer, I recommend anyone work for Jonathan Clay or Mark Fussell if you ever get the chance.
- Rulero 12y agoWell done and congratulations!
- bowlofstew 12y agoVery cool and congrats!
- mkesper 12y agoHope the dream continues when you actually start working. :)
- Srinivas_Tamada 12y agoMany Congrats.
- KhalPanda 12y agoInteresting that this thread has gained so much traction. I created an "Ask HN" submission this morning asking about people's experiences with the monthly "Freelancer? Seeking freelancer?" threads, which got ignored and promptly burried! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7832404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7832404
- taternuts 12y agoProbably because the idea for this thread was given the official go-ahead by dang [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7682938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7682938)
- KhalPanda 12y agoI don't see what that has to do with the impact on my thread...? The freelancing threads (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7162201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7162201, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5803767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5803767, etc) are popular, appear to be well-received and reliably receive a number of up-votes. For some reason, me asking for people's experiences in that thread is attracting a number of down-votes. Odd.
- AdrienBe 12y agoIs there any threads for people located in Europe only, Switzerland more precisely? ps. It's hard to find skilled people & vice-versa so this could really help
- lazyant 12y agoI had kind of the opposite experience; interviewed one or more times with a bunch of the "Who's hiring" companies and only one had the decency to send an email with an update; the others went into radio silence.
- jader201 12y agoThis is what I like about the "Who wants to be hired?" threads. You're more likely to get relevant hits because (hopefully) the prospective companies are reviewing your skills before reaching out.
- fnbr 12y agoMe too. There were a few "Who's Hiring" companies where I went through multiple interviews- I even got a verbal offer from one- only for the companies to just stop responding to me.
- lazyant 12y agoIn a strange way this makes me feel a bit better (so it's not just me). If there was no downside I'll publicly shame these companies.
- moserware 12y agoWhen I saw Jerad's post on Hacker News, he looked like a good fit for a developer role at Kaggle. Our team interviewed him remotely and I met him in person and verified that he has the talent, curiosity, and life-long interest in software development that'll make him a great addition. We're really excited to bring him aboard. Thanks HN for helping us make a rare find! P.S. If you're into machine learning and/or have an interest in developing a great site for a community (like Jerad), we're always looking for more to join us: http://www.kaggle.com/careers http://www.kaggle.com/careers
- nopal 12y agoJerad's a great dev and a great person. You guys did well!
- emiller829 12y agoOh, nice -- until I saw your comment I wasn't aware Jerad was a Louisville local! Congrats Jerad, and congratulations to Kaggle!
- jader201 12y agoThanks Jeff, I can't wait!
- MojoJolo 12y agoThis is good to hear. Congratulations Jared. On a different note, I replied in this comment because I would like to ask something. Are there any other job openings at Kaggle? The career page only shows product manager and data scientist. I think I'm a mix of data scientist and a backend engineer. But I don't think I have experience doing work in energy industry.
- perlgeek 12y agoApply anyway. If you fulfil every requirement of a job position, you're over-qualified (or quickly bored).
- sungeuns 12y agoCongratulation! Kaggle is my dream company too : )
- ryentzer 12y agoCongrats. It's encouraging to hear of a jobs postings that really do work.
- agentultra 12y agoI too had a good experience and had the opportunity to speak with many interesting people... however the only thing lacking was the visibility of my preferences. I wasn't surprised that the majority of people who contacted me were from SF but everyone who had seemed oblivious to the fact that I'm based in Canada, not interested in relocating, but love to work remotely. If we do another thread I will certainly try again (still looking).
- k-mcgrady 12y agoDid you put your location and whether you working looking remote or on site work on your post or did they ignore that?
- agentultra 12y agoI did and it seems to have been ignored or missed by plenty of folks.
- zamio 12y agoCan someone do another "who wants to be hired?" thread
- serf 12y agogratz on the job. did you ever implement the 'bells' system for the animal crossing site? That idea intrigued me as a workaround for ad blockers.
- jader201 12y agoIt's been slow, but it's promised for the next release (after the current one we're working on, which should release in the next few weeks). I will admit we've not handled it very well, as far as timing, as we talked about it way too early. But it's at the top of the list following this release, so nothing else will get updated without the Bells shop being implemented, however long it takes us.
- michaelochurch 12y agoCongratulations. It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there like that.
- gansai 12y agoCongratulations.. Awesome...
- jackmaney 12y agoCongratulations! Kaggle sounds like a wonderful place to work.
- samk9080 12y agoCongrats Jerad! P.S. Kaggle sounds like a great place to work - Just out of curiosity do you know if Kaggle is looking for any front-end devs.? :)
- Zhian 12y agoWow, congrats! Like a few people on this thread, I wasn't aware these actually paid off. Well done on landing an awesome job.
- clavalle 12y agoI'll have to give the 'Who Wants to Be Hired' thread a try when it comes up again. Thanks for sharing your story! Very motivating!
- ken_laun 12y agoCongratulations! Good Luck at Kaggle.
- Killswitch 12y agoCongratulations! I found my dream job in IRC. It's always the unusual places you find your dream job. Kaggle looks very interesting. Good luck to both you.
- genofon 12y agocongratulations! Kaggle is a great company!
- bjpcjp 12y agoThis is awesome. Well done!
- Inversechi 12y agoI too was impressed by the response from posting on that thread. I had recently moved to Germany to be closer to my partner and got spotted by a company that was really interesting to me (MenschDanke [0]). Had a few interviews, met the team and all that went well and I start working on Monday :) [0]: http://www.menschdanke.de/ http://www.menschdanke.de/ This thread should definitely be continued!
- zamio 12y agoCongrats. This is the best use of HN!
- piratebroadcast 12y agoReally happy for you Jared! I'm a full-stack Rails dev in Boston and posted in the new "Who's Looking?" thread. Wish me luck.