
Come to London - kaokun
http://freyfogle.tumblr.com/post/55508022017/come-to-london
======
kolektiv
Hmmm. I'm not one of the people you're really looking for here, but I could
take a stab at reasons why I haven't been beating a path to your door...

a) I haven't really heard of you. A few words here and there over the years,
but how much do you get out there and tell the geek community you exist? I'm
guessing it's specific to a few specific tech areas - which I haven't seen. b)
You're in London, you talk about "working hard" and being in your "Clerkenwell
office". I've worked round there before, but really? I want a company who's
more about working smart - and not in one place all the time. How much do you
_really_ need to physically see me? Commuting, plus a little bit of a tiny
hint of "macho hard work culture" (probably unfair, but...) is enough for me
to take a place off my list. It's a sellers market, generally. c) Also...
money. London is expensive. Everyone knows London is expensive (and they're
right). You don't say anything about money - no hints, etc. My reaction (being
picky) is that it probably isn't enough to make it worth my while (and also
that you may try and make me the lowest offer you think you can - I'm assuming
you don't have open pay scales). d) Effort. You talk about your tough hiring -
multiple rounds, tests, a day working with you (you don't say whether you'll
pay me for this...) Why would I do this? If I'm smart, capable, good at what I
do, I probably know people who want to work with me already - why jump through
these hoops for a possibly good job then?

These may be unfair points - I hope not, but perhaps - but finding good people
right now is about attracting them, not throwing up barriers or making them
work for it.

~~~
kaokun
Thanks for your feedback kolektiv. Allow me to follow up on a few of your
points:

a) If you have any advice on how to get our name out in the geek community
then let me know. You are right that a lot of our community stuff is Perl or
Geo focussed, but that's where our expertise is so that's where we can
contribute the most. How well received would we be at a Python or Ruby event?
Or are there more generic events we should be aware of?

b) When it comes to interns and more junior roles we really need to physically
see you, every day, with face to face interaction. You just get more bandwidth
and more effective communication that way.

Your point about working smart is 100% right. Internally we have 'work smart
not hard' as one of our mantras, and that's not well reflected in the job ad
at all. Thanks!

c) We don't say anything about money precisely because London is expensive and
getting more so every year. One way to work smart is to write an intern job ad
that we've hardly touched since 2006, despite the fact that intern salaries
have increased consistently every year since then. We also like to be flexible
based on people's experience - is it really worth putting on a job ad "£25K -
50K" when that's the range we're willing to consider for different candidates?

d) We're a small company of ~15 people with 4 engineers. That means if we hire
you as our fifth engineer you're immediately making up 20% of the engineering
team! You're damn right we want to make our interview process intense. I think
it's fair to forewarn candidates about that.

Thanks again for your feedback. I hope you'll share some more, especially on
point (a) about getting our name out there more.

~~~
mseebach
> is it really worth putting on a job ad "£25K - 50K" when that's the range
> we're willing to consider for different candidates?

Yes. It anchors your offering quite a bit. £25k is somewhat north of the UK
mean income (not the London one, though), and especially as a foreigner allows
me to get an idea on what my budget might look like. £50k is somewhat less
what your competitors are paying for decent talent (no, not just finance,
although it's a dumb career move to write off finance wholesale), so if I'm
making £50k somewhere else and looking to level up, I know that I'll be
wasting both yours and my time, on the other hand, if I'm making £30k, and my
boss tells me it's a good salary, I know that that's a good chance I could
make more.

Also, I plainly enjoy the honesty. "£Competitive" my ass.

~~~
Peroni
Agreed 100% with this advice. A large range beats 'competitive' or 'Dependent
on Experience" any day.

------
cocoflunchy
Reading your internships page
([http://www.lokku.com/jobs/intern.html](http://www.lokku.com/jobs/intern.html)):

    
    
        > Will you pay for my travel to London?
        No.
        > Can you help me get a work permit?
        No. You need to be able to work in the UK.
    

The internship sounds really interesting, but maybe if you want more people
applying from all over Europe, you should be a little more open about your
relocation policy? (I understand that the cost of travel might not be
prohibitively expensive intra-europe, but it kind of reads as "Can I apply if
I'm not in London? No.")

~~~
freyfogle
If you're from the EU you don't need a work permit.

~~~
arethuza
I think it's the EEA - which is the EU plus Iceland, Norway and Lichtenstein:

[http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/eucitizens/](http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/eucitizens/)

~~~
swombat
Also includes Switzerland.

------
Peroni
Is this not essentially a job ad disguised as a blog post?

~~~
gotofritz
Disguised ... ?

------
sztanko
Several years ago I treated Lokku as the coolest place to work in London
according to my criterias. It was the only one map-obsessed, small, open-
source friendly, no-bullshit startup in a nice location. Unfortunately I was a
Java guy and they were looking for Perl people.

I believe you cannot underestimate the impact it makes on London geo scene.
Without Lokku, London will be a rather dull place from geospatial perspective.

If I were in the Uni now (I graduated in Hungary), I would definitely apply.

~~~
henrik_w
The language shouldn't matter for a good developer. From their web page: "Many
of our past interns have been new to Perl."

~~~
sztanko
I wasn't an intern and I wanted to go towards Java/Hadoop. Which was not
required at Lokku at that time.

------
dkrich
_Will this internship make me filthy rich? No. If it 's money you're after go
work in the sub-basement of a bank on an obscure back end system that no one
will care about. If you want the chance to work on critical projects used by
millions of people, to have a voice in designing complex systems, to have your
ideas be valued, and to learn an exceptional amount in a very short period of
time then this is the place for you._

Come again? I don't care how successful these guys are- I hope whoever crafted
this page isn't judging the communication portion of the interview. To whom is
this kind of language supposed to appeal?

~~~
rdouble
It's a bit of a straw man. In NYC at least, many of the hedge funds have more
"startup" like environments than the startups do.

------
lifeisstillgood
Sorry, but this entirely missed the point.

Developers, hell, almost all office workers, should think remote working
_first_ then worry about relocation.

The comments all through here are quite right - it is hard for anyone to move
country, even talented, young, healthy, unattached interns.

In the future workers will be able to work with any company in the world. This
will scare the hell out of all companies and they will improve the pay and
conditions.

On the other hand, I _strongly_ urge anyone with developer skills and no
family ties to move to _any_ major city in Europe and live and work for a few
years. Just go. The job is far far less important than simply being there.

------
rdouble
My EU friends claim the pay is never enough at London startups to make moving
worth their while. Then they say something about the weather.

------
xadoc
I believe the reason why Portuguese developers are not flooding UK (I don't
completely agree, I see them coming more and more but slowly) is that any
reasonably good developer in Portugal still can find work in consulting and
state related IT firms. They work long hours and earn low, but enough to live
comfortably there.

~~~
freyfogle
But won't that opportunity be there after they spend 2-3 fun years in London?

~~~
xadoc
That is my point exactly to them, but it seems tougher to leave family and
friends when you live comfortably and still save some cash.

Here is a sample of excuses my Portuguese friends (SW Engineer related) gave
me to not even consider job opportunities in London:

\- can't leave my family now, I have a girlfriend and don't want to leave her

\- my English is not good enough

\- I don't like the weather there (sounds stupid, but I hear this one a lot)

Also right now in Portugal there is bullshit talk from employers that younger
people should stay and help revamp the economy (by working extra hours for
free) and the situation is so bad that in some areas like Design/Architecture
people do internships for free and the interns keep being replaced with new
ones after 3 months or so.

~~~
namdnay
Why do you consider the climate to be a stupid reason? If your mood is, like
many people, closely linked to the weather, if you love the sun, the sea and
all the outdoor activities they bring, why wouldn't you stay? I can perfectly
understand someone who chooses a less fulfilling professional life in order to
see the sun every day. In fact many companies in the nicer parts of the world
actively use the surrounding climate and geography as a recruitment argument.

------
timbrooke
> Come to London

... and don't forget to bring your mobile phone - we'd like to get to know
each other a little better:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10177765/Travellers-
mo...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10177765/Travellers-mobile-phone-
data-seized-by-police-at-border.html)

~~~
freyfogle
But is that really a reason not to come work in London for a few years? Is the
situation any better in other EU countries?

~~~
guard-of-terra
The feeling is that yes, EU/Schengen borders are much less surprise-ridden
than US/UK.

