
Jonathan Oxer Needs a Job - hownottowrite
https://www.facebook.com/jonoxer/posts/10155472646613293
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pinewurst
Another data point on the lightyears-wide gap between people who do things and
the whiteboard-centric, "top schools required" tech world.

Speaking as another bootstrap engineer, I eventually had to make a turn into
marketing and sales. Compared with engineering organizations, those are far
more pragmatic about their hires, especially for candidates with proven
abilities to communicate well. It is sad to step away from being a maker, but
it does pay the bills and coworkers are at least decent people.

~~~
zeamaize
Can you offer proof of said credentials? I've heard of him. That's his
credential. His work speaks for itself.

Have I heard of you?

A top school isn't a guarantee of success, but it's a credential that might
mean something more than simply your ow personal self opinion.

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vowelless
I remember him from this video, where he describes how his product
"Freetronics Experimenters Kit for Arduino" was copied by another company.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW8K9D9u5aI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW8K9D9u5aI)

Seems like a pretty standup guy who has done a lot of cool stuff!

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jey
> 30 seconds looking at the hiring requirements immediately disqualifies me.
> I’d never even make it past the filters to the first interview.

Sounds like he's taking those requirements too seriously. It's true that going
through a HR department would likely get him filtered out, but there's plenty
of smaller companies and such where hiring managers are the ones looking at
the resume. They can look past the fact that there's no "education" section
and instead just a long track record of really delivering value.

~~~
kafkaesq
_Sounds like he 's taking those requirements too seriously._

"Taking them at face value" was how I read it.

And if that's "taking things to seriously", well then -- that outlines a
shortcoming on the company's side.

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khedoros1
> that outlines a shortcoming on the company's side.

Or not, if they want to hire employees that won't give up easily when faced by
challenging situations.

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kafkaesq
_Or not, if they want to hire employees that won 't give up easily when faced
by challenging situations._

Like incoherent, pretentious or otherwise detached-from-reality job
description, you mean?

Yeah, I happily give up on "challenges" like those all the time. If a company
already can't communicate honestly and effectively at that stage in the
process, they definitely aren't worth the bother.

~~~
khedoros1
Meh. If something sounds cool, but I don't fit all their "must haves", I'd
still consider it worthwhile to at least talk to someone about it. Then again,
they're usually the ones who contacted me first, so it's not like I have to
get past the automated resume sorter.

~~~
kafkaesq
That's the thing -- it's an entirely different ballgame on the ambiguity front
when they've contacted you first (versus the other way around). In that case,
at least presumably they've already mulled over the potential skill gap, and
(again, at least presumably) saw something in you that significantly outweighs
that gap.

OTOH, if they have a big sign on the front door that says "requires 5-8 years
of X,Y,Z" \-- in addition to all the other randomness one has to deal with
when initiating contact (Will they _ever_ respond? And will they ask me do
some silly exercise requiring 5-20 hours before proceeding pass the initial
contact?) -- then of course my answer is "Meh, I think I'll pass."

And if they genuinely expect candidates to be "bold" and second-guess their
stated, bold-font "must-have" requirements, then they've definitely entrusted
the wrong person to edit the final copy of their job reqs -- or they're
playing (some really quite silly) head games with themselves.

~~~
oddlyaromatic
I think writing job descriptions for ads is crappy work that nobody wants to
do and they are often rushed or out of date. Granted, selling idea that your
8-week bootcamp puts you up there with 8 years of somebody else's experience
is not really possible. But turning 3 years into 8 years can be if you can
show maturity in your working practices and maybe some passion for the
subject. You don't have to be exact person in the requirements. You DO have to
convince somebody that you are on that same level of knowledge/capability,
just for different reasons.

~~~
kafkaesq
But do you really want to spend your precious time talking to people who can't
get something as simple as a job req right?

If they can't communicate coherently at that stage in the process (and/or just
as likely, don't really know what they went from the person they're hiring)
then they're probably confused and/or uncommunicative about a whole lot of
other things internally, is my general take.

~~~
oddlyaromatic
>don't really know what they went from the person they're hiring

I think this is spot on in terms of those incredibly long lists of skills you
sometimes see. If they don't know what is important, they just ask for a Swiss
Army knife. And that intimidates people who take the reqs seriously. Maybe
your right that it's a signal of a potentially bad environment too.

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api_or_ipa
This probably is one of the best ways for someone of his notoriety to get
connected to his next gig. I'm very confident he could generate a number of
excellent leads just by talking around to his local tech companies.

It's the people who don't have decades of success behind them who languish
between jobs because they don't have a degree or $BIG_BUSINESS on their
resume.

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GuiA
This is a good cautionary tale for younger developers.

Know how to market yourself, or you'll end up throwing yourself a public pity
party to try to get a job (sorry for being harsh, but that's what a post full
of impressive achievements followed by "I'm broke and unemployed at 46, and
not qualified for anything" is).

This guy has probably more cumulative knowledge and experience than 99% of the
developers at any famous large company or startup. But there are tens of
thousands of engineers nowhere near as good as he is making a quarter million,
half million dollars a year or more, while he's posting about being broke.

A common objection to this is that you have to pick between pleasing
recruiters or pursuing your passion. But that's a false dichotomy! François
Chollet, John Carmack, or Yves Lecun to name a few are the best in the world
at their specific niche, and they're not in that situation - as are many
others with slightly less impressive resumes than they have. So clearly it can
be done.

Edit: surprised to be so quickly downvoted. You'd think that for a site where
raising millions of dollars is glorified every day, HNers would consider being
a broke technical genius a bug, not a feature. Either this is the very first
thing the guy did when looking for a job, in which case I find it very odd
(can you imagine if John Carmack posted something about how he needs a job but
he's "not qualified for anything"?); or he's posting this after many emails
sent, interviews passed, coffee had, etc., in which case this only adds to my
point.

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weberc2
I thought it was pretty brilliant advertising.

~~~
GuiA
Yeah, but do you have a job to offer him? If not, you're not the target
audience.

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harry8
I've met Jon and like him.

This is an "I'm a goddamn superstar and I'm advertising myself as such." Post.

This is not actually about inability to get a job or university requirements -
that's some window dressing on the (justified) boast. This is about Jon
getting a superstar's job. And why not? He probably deserves it and then some.
Don't let anyone undersell you the importance of marketing.

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xfer
I would have hard time believing a respectable workplace rejecting his resume,
if he applied to one.

~~~
zeamaize
I wouldn't. Most workplaces automate the first few passes because of how much
resume spam they get hit with.

Now I'd have a hard time imagining a good workplace rejecting him if an actual
human saw his resume.

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andreyf
> I'd have a hard time imagining a good workplace rejecting him if an actual
> human saw his resume.

Then you haven't ever worked with someone like this. All the resume says to me
is "internally motivated engineer with resources". That doesn't mean he will
work well on any of your teams or on the projects you need done.

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voltagex_
I wonder if something happened to Freetronics, or if it was never particularly
profitable at all.

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jesseschalken
Just doesn't make enough money (according to a comment of his on that post).

