

Seeking Mediocre Ruby Developers - Matt_Mickiewicz
http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/22396/seeking-mediocre-ruby-devs-flippa

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mdm_
I'm always turned off by job postings that use words like "rockstar", "ninja",
"superstar", etc. I'm mostly a Python and Javascript dev (with some occasional
PHP, Java, and Ruby) and I'd rate my ability as "average". I'm currently
employed and I build websites and web apps.

When I think of a "superstar" or "ninja", I think of someone who doesn't just,
for example, have the ability to write Javascript code. I think of someone who
knows every little trick the language has. Someone who knows the internals of
V8 and/or Spidermonkey, and has maybe contributed code. Someone who sits on
the ECMAScript committee. Who gets invited to large conferences to speak on
Javascript. Someone who's written books that major tech publishers like
O'Reilly or Apress or Sitepoint have published. Someone who has written a
library or framework that thousands of developers use. I think of people like
Doug Crockford or John Resig. Y'know, _superstars_ in their field.

I have a suspicion that many of these companies probably only need an average,
competent developer, but they use language that makes an average developer
think they wouldn't have a snowball's chance.

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AlexanderZ
I don't like listings which say "ninja" or "kick-ass" as well, but using
"mediocre" isn't much better.

Why not just say "good"? A job listing titled "We are looking for good
developers" would make me want to read it further.

~~~
Matt_Mickiewicz
It's about breaking through the clutter & being contrarian.

By now, everyone has realized the value of A+ players and they tailor the job
ads to those individuals -- the problem being, that anybody who is any good is
already employed, has their choice of opportunities and is never browsing
through the Stackoverflow job boards.

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nnq
"emacs users probably shouldn't bother applying" ...WTF?!

~~~
greenyoda
That bothered me a bit too, being an Emacs user. And what exactly is a
"corporate type", and why aren't they wanted either? I'm assuming that the
entity behind this job ad is a corporation of some sort.

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throwaway54-762
It's all parody, folks. They just want your attention long enough for you to
consider them. Find a sense of humor =).

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compay
Who would want to hire people who self-describe as mediocre? Probably a bully
who likes pushing people around. Anybody with an iota of self-respect
shouldn't respond to an ad like that.

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dhenzel
I can not recall that i have ever read the word mediocre in a job ad :)

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ans
yes sir, you are. you attract like minded people.

god damn, i WILL migrate my platform away from ruby, that's how hard finding
ruby developers who arent populist or contrarian is

