

Joel Spolsky's resume tip for startup applicants - tptacek
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/01/02b.html

======
mpk
Steve Yegge says something similar about applying for a position at Google.

[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/09/ten-tips-for-
slightl...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/09/ten-tips-for-slightly-
less-awful-resume.html)

'Resume screeners keep an eye out for non-weasel words, aka Productivity
Words. These are words that you can't weasel out of when someone asks you
about them. The best are synonyms of "got real stuff done", including "coded",
"implemented", "developed", "delivered", and "launched".

It's perfectly OK to use "designed", as long as you follow it up with a
Productivity Word. If you design something without implementing it, then it's
just a synonym for "Proposed". If you prefer to design things that other
people ultimately implement, then you're quite possibly outstanding material
for a company full of kneebiters. But a real tech company like Amazon or eBay
or Microsoft or whoever isn't going to hire you, because they can find plenty
of people who can both design things and implement them.'

------
raffi
When I left the military--I interviewed, outside my network, looking for a
tech lead position. During the interviews I emphasized my leadership skills
and experiences. I had come from a research background: won funding on my own,
executed my own projects (i.e. wrote code), led development teams, and
contributed in many places. I got things done.

Every interview led to an offer+. Yet I was frustrated during the whole
process. I asserted tech lead and they pushed back with straight coder.

\+ [Note--there was one company where I declined before they could make an
offer.]

After reading this post, I can see there was a difference of values causing a
misunderstanding. In the military, my technical skills were completely ignored
(except at the research lab--I found my way there despite my career field).
Leadership ability is what matters (esp for officers). In the civilian world,
it seems leadership skills are perceived as fluff.

I won't say one is better than the other. A lot of time what people pass off
as leadership accomplishments are just fluff. Its harder to fake a solid
technical background.

Eventually I declined every offer and am continuing to work on my startup
idea. At the time, the process gave me a bad taste of private sector "jobs".
This led to a second wind and more determination to make it.

My failure tolerance moved from "almost out of money--get a job" to "sell
everything I own, move in with my parents, try startup again--get a job if
accumulating debt".

I haven't hit these extremes yet but find myself willing to go there if
necessary.

~~~
nostrademons
I'm curious - why the bad taste of private sector jobs? Because of the
emphasis on technical skills, or something else?

I can sympathize with the "declined all offers and continued to work on
startup idea". I did that once and was very tempted to do it a second time.
Eventually I figured that since I had a good offer in hand and my ideas didn't
seem all that hot, I was better off taking it _before_ I got into dire
straits.

~~~
raffi
This didn't really have anything to do with idea and opportunity cost vs. job.
It was about cultural differences. I interviewed outside my network (to avoid
burning bridges for saying no). At the time--I found the process distasteful
as they ignored what I had been conditioned to value most about myself.

I'm thankful I did get offers and was welcomed into these organizations. But I
did feel devalued and this is no way to walk into an organization. This
further motivated me to keep rocking it on my own.

------
wheels
I think this depends on if you're hiring someone new primarily to take the
coding pressure of the current team / founders or if you're hiring someone
that will grow into leading a group later on and have to wear a lot of hats
along the way.

But I don't think Joel is really talking about startups, he's talking about
Fog Creek. Fog Creek isn't a startup, it's an established, profitable, small
business, and for small businesses, he's right.

------
russell
Back in the last century, I was the CTO at small company and I had to hire
marketing and sales vice presidents. I learned pretty quickly to avoid people
from large companies like IBM. They never got their hands dirty and wanted a
large support staff. I never really interview programmers from large
companies, but I suspect the same may be true for them, e.g. they have never
configured a server.

------
schoudha
"Those VP jobs just don’t exist at startups, and the few VPs they have are the
founders and a key early hire or two. Not you."

That's probably not fair. Successful startups are looking for talent, not
pedigree - it's a question of whether the candidate can add significant value
as a VP.

I think this blog post get's distracted from it's original point - if you're a
software developer looking for a software developer position then emphasize
software development skills. This applies to small companies and even big
companies (like Google). The skill set to be a good developer is consistent no
matter what the size of your company.

This doesn't mean that startups don't need business, product, or technical
leadership because all the best ones have shown they attracted all these very
early.

~~~
tptacek
So, even though I think Spolsky's posts have gone further and further off the
rails, this is one that resonated with me:

* first, management jobs in startups _do_ go to the founders and "key hires" (definition: if you have to ask if you are one, you aren't) --- _and_

* _the_ key predictor for whether someone does well in a startup has, in my experience, been how willing they are to write lots of code, as opposed to just talking about code.

Every bad hiring decision I have ever contributed to has involved allowing
myself to be impressed with someone's
design/architecture/methodology/"engineering". Conversely, everyone I've ever
neg'd because they didn't seem grounded or professional enough has gone on to
depants me in the commit logs.

~~~
ghshephard
Even though I recognize you meant this, I'd edit your key predictor to read,
'the key predictor for whether someone does well in a startup has, in my
experience, been how willing they are to write lots of _good_ code"

I've been at several startups where the developers who made the most
difference where those who wrote concise, correct, and elegant code that did
the job, and nothing more. They didn't get distracted into writing
"architectures" when all that was needed was a "tool." Their code was a
pleasure to build upon, and people instantly respected their ability to bang
it out.

Sometimes less is more.

~~~
tptacek
I actually didn't mean that. I meant: write lots of code.

The bad decisions I made?

(a) thinking that people who could talk and talk and talk about code ( _shut
up I'm not interviewing with you_ ) would write _good_ code

(b) thinking that people who couldn't explain why they'd ever use a red-black
tree instead of a hash table would write _bad_ code.

I'm making a case for more-is-more. People who write code (really write, sure,
not cut-paste) have work ethics, are really _into_ actually writing code, can
easily be trained to bring them up to a median "engineery" standard of code,
and get stuff done.

~~~
icey
I'm not sure where in the tree to place this, so I'll put it at the bottom.

The absolute best indicator I've found for separating quality developers from
the 9 to 5 set is finding out what they read.

80% read nothing and admit to it.

15% will make up something like "I read lots of things" or "I read blogs".
This is the dangerous group, they're the astronauts.

The last 5% will tell you books they're reading, and more often than not will
recommend books to you because they are passionate about what they read.

This simple test has yet to fail me. I'm sure there are great programmers in
the 9 to 5 crew, but they aren't the people I want to trust in a pinch. I'll
always prefer the guy who is doing this because he loves it over the guy who
does it because it's a paycheck.

~~~
tptacek
I've met a lot of people who can talk very intelligently about code and
design, and who have read the canon, and can't put a function in a text editor
to save their lives. Obviously, I'm not the only person to notice this: it's
the reason for the "fizzbuzz" test.

~~~
icey
Well, there are two parts to this. First of all, here (Phoenix) the market is
very full of the "I program because it pays the bills" sort, and when we do a
posting we review hundreds of candidates (either who directly contact us or
are sent to us). Of those hundreds, I'll talk to probably 30 to 50. Of that 30
to 50, maybe 5 or 6 will come in for a face to face. The conversation around
software is a great start and it saves me a TON of time when screening
candidates by phone. Once there here we can talk code samples or details.

The second part is that it is inevitable that someone will eventually talk a
good talk but be unable to actually walk the walk. That's when it's nice that
we're in a right to work state. There's no point keeping someone on if they
can't do the job you've hired them to do.

Of course, all that being said, this only works _because_ we are a small shop,
and the person doing the hiring is the same person who will work with "the new
guy" from day one. This makes it loads easier than having to deal with hiring
for someone else's department or even company.

------
hs
"Contributes to OpenBSD file system in spare time"

i'm curious about a windows shop using openbsd as an example for startup cto
recruiting

~~~
nandemo
I'm not sure if they're a 100% Windows shop.

In any case, if you think of it as a sort of modified version of the "Python
paradox" for sysadmin, then it makes sense. You can probably get better
Windows admins if you look for people who can do both Windows and OpenBSD
(though I suspect not many OpenBSD gurus would be eager to work with Windows).

------
edw519
_Single-handedly developed robust 100,000 LOC threadsafe C++ service_

I don't know if I love this or hate it.

Does "Single-handedly" mean "jack of all trades" or "doesn't work well with
others"?

"Robust" according to whom? Save the commercials for your webpage. Just the
facts, ma'am.

"threadsafe C++ service" that did what? for whom? Did anyone even want it?
Does anyone even use it? The outcome is as important as the process.

"100,000 LOC" My favorite. I still don't know how I feel about this. Does this
mean lots and lots of valuable experience or a newbie who can't write a
function but is a whiz at cut and paste? Hell, my javascript generator just
cranked out 100,000 LOC while I slept. Onto the resume it goes!

~~~
acangiano
> "Robust" according to whom? Save the commercials for your webpage. Just the
> facts, ma'am.

I would argue that a resume is a personal, (hopefully) factual commercial. The
interview is there to put any claims you've made into perspective.

