

Why I'm Not Applying to 37signals (But Why You Should) - Veraticus
http://joshsymonds.com/blog/2013/03/19/why-im-not-applying-to-37signals-but-why-you-should/

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loganfrederick
"And another, 'He’s the greatest programmer to ever draw breath!'"

"4. Work with the best – and be the best."

"Why You Shouldn’t: 1. You’re not the best."

I like DHH and 37Signals, but this blog post is hyperbole. DHH is great, but
he's not Carmack, and I don't know any serious programmers who would say "He's
the greatest programmer to ever draw breath" or that the 37Signals team is
"the best" and nobody who works there is "not the best".

In the spirit of having something nice to say, it is good to aspire to work at
jobs where you are surrounded by talented people, and 37Signals certainly does
attract people who want to work with accomplished peers.

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DrinkWater
Every time i read about these great places to work it makes me sad. To know i
will probably never enter the realm of being good enough for these companies.

I dont know if this is true, but they are giving everyone this expression: We
just take the best of the bests.

~~~
omulous
As a student applying for internships, this is the scariest part about all
these great places to work.

~~~
tropicalmug
I am a student, and I can completely empathize with how you feel. I can tell
you that a lot of what I've seen is that it's one-hundred percent completely
worth the stress and fear of rejection if even one long-shot (in your mind)
pays off. I've had that happen to me firsthand, and I've seen it in other
people. The more experience you have dealing with tough problems, the better
you'll be thinking about them, and tough interview problems by extension. Just
make your interview count as best you can, and step back and wait. I promise
it's worth it.

~~~
omulous
Yeah. I've had several interviews, and am currently working as an intern at a
startup, but I've never experienced any difficult algorithm-heavy/trick
problems in interviews. One of the things that deters me from applying is just
the fear as you've said but I'll definitely be trying for jobs that I feel are
a little out of my comfort zone next semester, and I know it will be worth it.

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yesimahuman
Doing your own thing is really addicting if you can make it work. I'd take
running my own company over working at 37signals or Google any day. I don't
know if I could have someone dictating my pay ever again.

It would still be awesome to work for them though, and the thought of not
having to worry about anything but making awesome software is really tempting
when you're having one of those days doing everything but.

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mhartl
It's worth nothing in this context that the OP and many of the commenters here
might have trouble landing a job at 37signals because they are misspelling the
name of the company:

[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1088-how-not-to-apply-for-
a-j...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1088-how-not-to-apply-for-a-job)

The OP spells it wrong in the title and uses both _37Signals_ (wrong) and
_37signals_ (right) in the text. (To be fair, he mostly spells it right.
Mostly.)

By the way, when Jason Fried made the post linked above, lots of people
criticized him for nitpicking, but spelling the name of the company correctly
is probably a good filter for the kind of gets-the-details-right employee
they're looking for.

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Schwolop
This is a bit sycophantic and too personalized, but the general points hold
true. This is an excellent opportunity for people who want to optimise for
learning, less so for people who want to optimise for innovation.

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hkmurakami
I'm actually rather shocked that 37 signals only has 9 engineers on board
(presumably DHH isn't included in this number). I remember reading that the
company has 30-40 employees [1]. I'd really love to know what the other 20-30
do, and what the other (relatively) heavily staffed groups are (I'd imagine
technical support would be one of them).

[1] Ah yes, 1 year ago they had 32 employees.
[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3188-from-4-to-32-people-
in-e...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3188-from-4-to-32-people-in-eight-
years)

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ky3
Is this an elaborate form of self-inflicted sour grapes?

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ZeroFiveTwo
Ruby's pretty pathetic of a language for you guys to keep projecting as a
language to be proud of.

C++ on the other hand, I will respect.

~~~
wlll
Your well thought out arguments have convinced me, I'm going to re-write all
our systems in C++ right now!

