
Tell HN: The usage of “ninja” in Who is Hiring? comments has been increasing - minimaxir
Per dang&#x27;s unusual request  (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9637459) and the fact that I have a convenient copy of the Hacker News database, I have made a chart plotting the usage of Rockstar and Ninja in comments on Who is Hiring posts:<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;heXjYTW.png<p>It&#x27;s mostly random how many instances there are of each phrase on a month-to-month basis; however, for Ninja, the number of instances is trending upward slightly.
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vmarsy
Nice looking plot, but looking at May 2015 who is hiring post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9471287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9471287)

I count 7 occurences of ninja, 2 of them is in the username/email of the
poster , so the real count is 5 , here are the 5 :

\- _Looking for an aspiring Rails ninja, with 5+ years experience_

\- _Why be a ninja when you can be a pirate?_

\- _so if you don 't fit the standard Bay Area "ninja rock star programmer"
mold - great! _

\- _Play - You 'll want a paddle at your desk to fight off incoming table
tennis balls. Ninja backhand required._

\- _Our team is ready to expand, and welcome a new developer with ninja-like
coding skills a..._

So 2 of them actually ask for a "Ninja", 2 of them specifically ask for NOT a
ninja, and one of them ask for a ninja in ping-pong. So I'm not sure how
accurate the plot is overall.

EDIT: Looking manually for "Ninja" in the posts from January to May 2015:

    
    
      Jan   : 0 / 334 comments
      Feb   : 1 / 643 comments
      March : 1 / 680 comments
      April : 1 / 952 comments
    
    

The only occurence is always the same post, downvoted, or asking if it is a
joke, otherwise it's " _No ninja / brogrammer/ rockstar_" . That same post
over time represents a smaller and smaller percentage of the number of
comments (Assuming 1 comment = 1 job offer)

~~~
minimaxir
Fair enough; I did not do manual introspection for sentiment.

However, I would say that both positive and negative sentiment is still
important since it reflects on whether people take silly job titles seriously.
Especially since Rockstar does not follow a similar trend.

~~~
vmarsy
Yes, I didn't look for the rock star/rockstar, but you're right, if people
feel the need to mention words such as rockstar/ninja, it's already a problem.

Thank you for answering mreskto question about what you used to draw the plots
, I find this short overview of ggplot2 interesting[1] !

[1][http://minimaxir.com/2015/02/ggplot-
tutorial/](http://minimaxir.com/2015/02/ggplot-tutorial/)

------
minimaxir
Clickable link to chart:
[http://i.imgur.com/heXjYTW.png](http://i.imgur.com/heXjYTW.png)

EDIT: Data, in CSV form:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zzgsV4YypiTHAg3Hj0Lc...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zzgsV4YypiTHAg3Hj0LcLC0qoB5rl5-ia0Oqudi9Vrg/edit?usp=sharing)

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
If I did the Mann-Kendall test correctly, we reject the no-ninja-trend
hypothesis at the p=0.0002 level, and do NOT reject the no-rockstar-trend (p =
.2)

------
salex89
Maybe it's because I live far outside the Bay Area, in Europe, so I don' get
the culture, but the whole guru/ninja nomenclature makes me nervous. Maybe
it's my low self-esteem kicking in, but I find it hard to associate with
things like Ruby-ninja or DevOps kung-fu when I just don't feel like a ninja,
and not sure will I ever. What's wrong with regular names? Can you imagine an
civil engineering mage title? :)

~~~
DanAndersen
It really is a shame. As someone who struggles with impostor syndrome
regularly, all this ninja-rockstar-10x nonsense is unsettling enough that I
dread the idea of throwing myself into the Bay Area food chain. Seems like it
risks selecting for bravado and bragging and pretending to be more than one
really is.

~~~
WalterSear
They are job descriptions. Tech job descriptions often try to demonstrate the
positivity of the work environment with an overly exhuberant tone of 'we're
excellent, your excellent, everything's excellent.

IMHE, in day-to-day life those terms are overwhelmingly used ironically. But,
then again, I have made genuinely hospitable work environments my first
priority in employment opportunities.

------
Agathos
Say you have a generator that emits random numbers in the range [0,6]. Now
construct a fake timeseries by sampling that generator about 50 times. Fit a
curve or moving average using the same method that you used here. What is the
probability that your random series will exhibit an upward trend as great as
the one you saw here?

~~~
minimaxir
The probability of an upward trend when sampling is pretty much nil if you are
sampling from a uniform series. A [0,6] uniform distribution will follow a
Normal distribution with mean = 3 and variance = 3 after enough resampling.
95% confidence interval for true mean would be (-0.3948196, 6.39482).

The LOESS regression lines do have a confidence interval to reflect the
uncertainty. It's a visual aid to illustrate the trend.

------
skrebbel
Could it be that there are simply more whoishiring comments?

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ams6110
How about "seeking mature, responsible adults, serious about working."

~~~
JesperRavn
That's really just replacing one bias/preference with another.

Some people consider themselves more emotionally and socially capable, and
want employers to recognize them for it.

Some considers themselves to be technical virtuosos and want employers to
recognize that.

HN has a left wing/collectivist bias which tends to favor the former, so it
constructs a narrative where the industry has an irrational bias towards the
latter.

~~~
jnbiche
> HN has a left wing/collectivist bias which tends to favor the former

Ha, first time I heard that. Usually we're accused of being libertarian
wingnuts.

That said, it is true that there are a lot of Democrats here, though not
really what I'd call "left wing" Democrats. Many of them Googlers and Apple
employees, from what I can tell (and campaign finance data backs me up).

~~~
meowface
HN is stereotypically seen as very left wing on social issues and libertarian
economically.

~~~
jnbiche
> HN is stereotypically seen as very left wing on social issues and
> libertarian economically.

So in a word, libertarian.

~~~
meowface
Sort of, "left libertarian" would be more accurate. Many people hear
libertarian and think Rand Paul.

------
tomkinstinch
Any chance this could be due to alliterative influence of the tech stacks du
jour? Perhaps Ruby or Rails Rockstars have ceded prevalence to Node Ninjas?

------
getsat
Any openings for a "zen master"?

The most ridiculous one I've seen was "dragon slayer".

~~~
zhte415
Perhaps it was at Mozilla?

about:config "Here be dragons"

~~~
getsat
No, it was a posting looking for "RUBY ON RAILS DRAGON SLAYERS" if I recall
correctly.

------
7Figures2Commas
Don't worry folks. "Gurus" will have their day again. It's only a matter of
time. I personally know of a large group of gurus who have been plotting their
return since 2001.

~~~
julien421
"Gurus" trend on HN: [http://imgur.com/7GUIFie](http://imgur.com/7GUIFie)
(based on all posts, not just who is hiring - src hnwatcher.com) It's not dead
yet, but clearly not as trendy as "ninja" nowadays :)
[http://imgur.com/ro5Tvh6](http://imgur.com/ro5Tvh6)

EDIT: last point for "ninja" on the last graph is June 2015.

------
mrestko
What did you use for making the charts? They look nice.

~~~
minimaxir
ggplot2, although I'm still playing around with the theme/fonts. See this post
for a general overview/tutorial of the theming:
[http://minimaxir.com/2015/02/ggplot-
tutorial/](http://minimaxir.com/2015/02/ggplot-tutorial/)

------
M8
Simply replace it with _" monkey"_ in your head, e.g.: "we are looking for an
Angular ninja!" = "we are looking for an Angular monkey _(because none of our
backend Scala guys are willing to touch JS with 10 feet pole_ ".

------
zalzane
can you add "hacker" to the data too?

~~~
julien421
I do not have access to the database, but this is what I find using
hnwatcher.com (based on submissions and comments, fow all HN posts)

[http://imgur.com/ITgXkk1](http://imgur.com/ITgXkk1)

------
jhildings
interesting, but what would actually be the definition of a "ninja" or "guru"?
Someone that codes in stealth mode and never is seen by the company?

------
ShirsenduK
<joke>Should the Japanese be worried?</joke>

------
LCDninja
_Opportunity for shameless promotion_

Wow! Our startup & product name BOTH use the word Ninja. (We'll accept USD$1M
@ USD$10,000,000 pre money valuation...)

Ninja Boxing Calculator
[https://itunes.apple.com/PL/app/id725106405](https://itunes.apple.com/PL/app/id725106405)

Let's just call it growth hacking and be done ;-)

~~~
LCDninja
OMG! Down voted!

No ads. Free app. Retro. Sarcasm.

What gives? No revenue model?

~~~
Semiapies
Complete irrelevance and lame hucksterism.

~~~
LCDninja
I find your comment truly magnificent. The honesty & brevity combined with
down votes have taught me something. Thank you!

I don't jest when I say "lame hucksterism" has been part of the image of LCD
Ninja, it's been quite deliberate. But just now, I've realised something -
this charade just sucks for everyone. It's not charming. It's not witty. It's
not original, ironic or even amusing. Not even to myself.

Thank you all for the feedback. We all learn that way! ;-)

