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Wanted: Ninja Rockstar Code Monkey Hacker Unicorn

Randall Koutnik on April 29, 2016

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 experien...
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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

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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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 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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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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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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Scott Drake

90% of projects only need a mediocre dev.

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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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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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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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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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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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Randall Koutnik

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

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Christian Vasquez

I agree.

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Juan C. Andreu

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

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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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Nick Taylor

But is there a foosball table? 😂

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Enrique Jose Padilla

Thank you for the chuckles :)

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Ben Halpern

👨🏻‍🎤🐒👨🏻‍💻🦄

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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

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

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Jason C. McDonald • Edited

This looks suspiciously like about three dozen jobs I've seen while searching. Hilarious!

Also reminds me of this actual job listing I encountered last month, which might as well just say "Applicant should know everything and be prepared to spend most of their time in meetings with execs."

Terrible Job Listing

I looked up the company (whose name I am not revealing to protect the moronic), and they have a storied history on Glassdoor as an abusive workplace with relatively poor compensation packages.

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Christian Vasquez

A GitHub profile that shows you’re already willing to work for free in your off hours.

Never thought about like that 🤔...

I had a good laugh, thanks!

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Steve Steiner

I read these and realize that what they need is an adult to help them with "reading a calendar" and "timeline of history -- the last 10 years." Maybe even "analog clock reading" to round out their education. Round out. Ha.

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Renan Lourençoni Nobile

This post represents so well the current vision of "CEO"s out there.

And not only in the tech area. Here in Brazil we see openings that require a super master lawyer that can revive people and sing while doing coffee for minimum salary (if not below the determined by law).

Not sure if I'm glad to know that this happens outside Brazil or is I should be crying.

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Donald

Nice to haves:

  • A GitHub profile that shows you’re already willing to work for free in your off hours

Clearly fake. That's always a Must Have.

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Patrick God

What about pinball?

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ennyta • Edited

No thanks, I accept only if there are darts!

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Vladimir Jovanović

What's so wrong about "white" and "male"? Recruiting based on diversity is the most racist thing you can possibly do.

Hire based on actual knowledge, regardless of race or sex and choose the best candidate.

If you want to be truly objective, don't ask for these fields in job application:

  1. Name and Surname
  2. Age
  3. Sex
  4. Picture
  5. Birth place

Only ask for professional and relevant experience.

At the point where you need to test candidates, give them the assignment and judge them based on competence.

What would happen in the end if most skilled candidates are indeed white or asian males? Would you dismiss them because they don't fit your diversity agenda?

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Mac

I sound like I'm your "guy". I'm already working 80-100 hours a week so that no big deal.

Skills: Developer (18+ years many languages), Hacker, Musician (ASCAP), DevOps, Blockchain, Problem Solver, and just plan old know how to get things done. Honestly, I enjoy solving problems that others can't. Also being creative give me a unique prospective on projects.

Mac-

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Brett Stevenson • Edited

Razor scooters?

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Scott 'Koda' Dudley

This is almost too true to be funny. Almost.

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Valentino Gagliardi

Post of the year.

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Gabriel Magalhães dos Santos

You forgot some benefits:

  • Beers on Friday
  • Dog therapy
  • Playstation 3 on lunch
  • Spotify and Netflix payed by company
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Ben Sinclair

I took the Dunning-Kruger test and got an A+.

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Frank@theOpenSourceU.org

I'd apply. :-)

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Sean Hull

Funny. I wish it weren't so spot on!

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ogrotten

Below is an image of comments from Ryan Dahl.

I registered just to comment that the image viewer on this site is really bad.

And then I just now realized that you can't do anything about that.

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Sebastian Tarach

Not for me :(
I identify myself as black woman and in my case kruger effect works in the other way. Poor me, pour me another drink.

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Kelly Vaughn

2% equity! That's quite generous.

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David J Eddy

This happens all to often...

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Sumant H Natkar

And with all this experience you can definitely learn new things in a week, and implement a project in it by using all the best practices.

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isabolic99

sad but true...