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Randall Koutnik
Randall Koutnik

Posted on • Originally published at rkoutnik.com on

Wanted: Ninja Rockstar Code Monkey Hacker Unicorn

We’re looking for the best of the best - but as you can already tell from the title, we have no idea what that looks like. We want someone experienced enough to implement our ridiculous ideas but paradoxically lacking the experience to realize what a raw deal we’re offering. Work long hours to implement vague ideas with no autonomy for vague promises of getting rich one day. After all, money’s the only thing that motivates anyone, right? Coding isn’t a creative field, it’s just telling the computer what to do.

You’ll get to work with all of our C-levels as they order you around on a daily basis. We’re an “Agile” team, so long as that means cutting corners to meet sales deadlines. We practice HN-driven-development. Plan on working ~100+ hours a week during sprints. If that scares you, don’t apply. We don’t want people who are scared by silly things like reality.

Get in on the ground floor to a catastrophe that’s sure to hit the front page of TechCrunch!

Must haves:

  • White
  • Male
  • Unshakable confidence due to the Dunning-Kruger effect
  • No interest in a life outside of the company
  • 5 years of experience in a three-year-old technology

Nice to haves:

  • Enough knowledge to convince a non-technical person you’re an expert in a handful of bleeding-edge technologies
  • Sneering disdain for the proven tech you should be building with
  • A GitHub profile that shows you’re already willing to work for free in your off hours

Perks:

  • Yes you’ll get all the usual benefits, but if you’re really going for perks, Google is your best bet! If you want to make an impact, then please apply.
  • 401k? Hah, you won’t need that with how rich your sliver of equity will make you!
  • We’ll have a large variety of alcohol in the office as well as an assortment of video games for the perfect frat environment
  • Office located in trendy downtown district in order to burn VC cash faster

Salary: Something that we’ll claim is top-of-market but is well below. We’ll offer the low end of the range, citing lack of experience with some framework that hasn’t left beta.

Equity: 0.1% - 2% for the "right person".

Top comments (50)

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maxwell_dev profile image
Max Antonucci

5 years of experience in a three-year-old technology

Something tells me requirements like this pop up depressingly often.

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twof profile image
Alex Reilly

Ten years of Swift Experience

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tterb profile image
Brett Stevenson

One of my personal favorites:

img

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dsanchezseco profile image
dsanchezseco

90% of Blockchain positions hahahahaha!

For "Enough knowledge to convince a non-technical person you’re an expert in a handful of bleeding-edge technologies" sadly there are to many non-tech that seem to be tech making things even worse

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rkoutnik profile image
Randall Koutnik

Fun fact: There's two sentence pairs in here lifted directly from real job descriptions. See if you can find them!

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andy profile image
Andy Zhao (he/him)

Get in on the ground floor to a catastrophe that’s sure to hit the front page of TechCrunch!

And

If that scares you, don’t apply.

Do I get bonus equity for guessing correctly?

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rkoutnik profile image
Randall Koutnik • Edited

You're half right one one of them! There are four real sentences in total, in pairs (so two couplets of two sentences each).

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sweetyclem profile image
Clémentine Pirlot

OK how about
Plan on working ~100+ hours a week during sprints. If that scares you, don’t apply.
And
Yes you’ll get all the usual benefits, but if you’re really going for perks, Google is your best bet! If you want to make an impact, then please apply

?

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rkoutnik profile image
Randall Koutnik

Winner! Well done.

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sweetyclem profile image
Clémentine Pirlot

Yeah!!! I think I should win a unicorn! 🦄
These sentences are seriously messed up, I'm so sad they're from actual descriptions

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

That's gold

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kayis profile image
K

Funny post, but lets take a step back and ask why they do this?

Hiring developers is a tricky problem. You basically need a skilled dev to find a skilled dev, but most people are neither skilled nor a dev.

But many companies need devs so they have to get creative, most people aren't creative either. Good entrepreneurs are creative, but how much of all founders are good entrepreneurs? Probably below 10%?

So I guess, about 90% of all offerings are made by neither creative people nor skilled devs.

On the other hand, 90% of developers are mediocre too and need to put up with these kind of offerings.

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tscottdrake profile image
Scott Drake

90% of projects only need a mediocre dev.

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aphor profile image
Jeremy McMillan

Because the business needs are quotidian, but the hiring manager also suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect, and thinks the challenge is "cutting edge."

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tterb profile image
Brett Stevenson

Hiring developers is a tricky problem. You basically need a skilled dev to find a skilled dev, but most people are neither skilled nor a dev.

Having spoken to two family members with no tech experience whatsoever that worked primarily hiring developers, there is definitely some validity to this idea. Though I would argue that you don't necessarily need a skilled dev, you definitely need someone with a significant amount of exposure to the field.
The conversation tends to lose a bit of credibility once you realize that the recruiter that's recruiting software engineers for Facebook doesn't have a clue what React is... (yes, this actually happened)

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kayis profile image
K

I often have the feeling recruiter is a job you take if you haven't much other options.

The good people all work in HR departments.

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

Most companies I've worked for don't involve anyone from the development team in the recruitment process - or if they do it's perfunctory and they disregard their comments anyway.

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sergiopicciau profile image
Sergio Picciau • Edited

Actually I'm a lead dev and people joining my team are directly interviewed by me (and also the tech lead) and we are really hiring high level developers (I would say problem solvers in software design and development with strong computer since background)

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edoxtator profile image
Doc

I think this is fake.

I see nothing about "leveraging synergies to develop existing capabilities to disrupt conventional out-of-the-box thinking".

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rkoutnik profile image
Randall Koutnik

My business mentor is Weird Al: youtube.com/watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4

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chrisvasqm profile image
Christian Vasquez

I agree.

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andreujuanc profile image
Juan C. Andreu

Reddit Driven Development.
Stack Overflow Driven Development.
Lets-Try-This-Beta-JS-Framework Driven Development.

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georgeoffley profile image
George Offley

-White
-Male
-Unshakable confidence due to the Dunning-Kruger effect
-No interest in a life outside of the company
-5 years of experience in a three-year-old technology

Seems about right.

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nickytonline profile image
Nick Taylor

But is there a foosball table? 😂

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mtbsickrider profile image
Enrique Jose Padilla

Thank you for the chuckles :)

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

👨🏻‍🎤🐒👨🏻‍💻🦄

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tscottdrake profile image
Scott Drake

And if they could find that person, they'd be bored out of their minds because it's a basic data-entry and reporting project. So to make it interesting, the person hired bloats it up and it ships late and the user won't adopt it because it's not a painful enough problem to get them to change.

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akmzero profile image
akmzero

Exactly this happened to me! Only it lasted a week before they realized they had no idea how to manage development of a new website and canned the project. /salt