
Thank HN: You guys helped me land my dream job. - jader201
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.<p>Last month, I posted my resume on the &quot;Who wants to be hired?&quot; 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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>The secondary reason was to hopefully hear some success stories others may have had from the thread.<p>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.<p>The fourth reason was to encourage those of you looking to get hired to post in this month&#x27;s thread [3], as it may very well help connect you with your next opportunity.<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=7685170<p>[2] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kaggle.com<p>[3] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=7833250
======
moserware
When 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
Jerad's a great dev and a great person. You guys did well!

~~~
emiller829
Oh, nice -- until I saw your comment I wasn't aware Jerad was a Louisville
local! Congrats Jerad, and congratulations to Kaggle!

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numlocked
Congrats! I'm a former Kaggle employee and it is an incredible place to work.

~~~
jacquesm
That'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
For 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.

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grayrest
I 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.

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visakanv
Congratulations! Work hard, and remember this if you ever find yourself going
through a rough patch or taking things for granted. Kick butt!

~~~
jader201
Definitely good advice, thanks. It'll be nice to have this to remember this
opportunity, for sure.

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lazyant
I 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.

~~~
fnbr
Me 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
In 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.

------
gs7
I 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.

------
Inversechi
I 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!

------
agentultra
I 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
Did you put your location and whether you working looking remote or on site
work on your post or did they ignore that?

~~~
agentultra
I did and it seems to have been ignored or missed by plenty of folks.

~~~
zamio
Can someone do another "who wants to be hired?" thread

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lbacaj
First off, Congrats!

Secondly, I didn't know those things actually worked so I never bothered
posting so good to see that they do.

~~~
rdudek
Me 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!).

------
piratebroadcast
Really 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.

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jlt
Congratulations! It's good to see people getting results from the "Who wants
to be hired?" threads!

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AdrienBe
Is 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

~~~
jader201
None of the whoishiring threads are location specific, but if you're open to
remote, these may help you find a good remote fit.

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jackmaney
Congratulations! Kaggle sounds like a wonderful place to work.

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mkesper
Hope the dream continues when you actually start working. :)

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Killswitch
Congratulations! 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.

------
Zhian
Wow, congrats! Like a few people on this thread, I wasn't aware these actually
paid off. Well done on landing an awesome job.

------
clavalle
I'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!

------
samk9080
Congrats 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.? :)

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ryentzer
Congrats. It's encouraging to hear of a jobs postings that really do work.

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antr
Congrats! Lets hope more people land their dream job via HN.

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simonhamp
Great post! And congratulations. Hope it goes well!

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serf
gratz 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
It'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.

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sungeuns
Congratulation! Kaggle is my dream company too : )

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jimwalsh
Congrats and good luck at the new job!

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zamio
Congrats. This is the best use of HN!

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ken_laun
Congratulations! Good Luck at Kaggle.

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Rulero
Well done and congratulations!

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gansai
Congratulations.. Awesome...

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bjpcjp
This is awesome. Well done!

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bowlofstew
Very cool and congrats!

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genofon
congratulations! Kaggle is a great company!

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Srinivas_Tamada
Many Congrats.

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hoboon
congrats! :D

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morewillie
Congrats!

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michaelochurch
Congratulations. It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there like
that.

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KhalPanda
Interesting 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
Probably 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
I 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.

