

Job description written in Ruby - subbu
http://jobs.37signals.com/jobs/5572

======
lucraft

        class Applicant < ActiveEngineer
          require 'mad_skills'
    

is an odd way to express it, because it doesn't actually say that Applicant
has MadSkills. Presumably they mean:

    
    
        require 'mad_skills'
    
        class Applicant < ActiveEngineer
          include MadSkills

~~~
qwzybug
Also, ActiveRecord? No thanks.

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tolmasky
Am I the only one who doesn't find these things cute?

~~~
loumf
It got them to the front page of Hacker News -- a "normal" ad would not have.
I'm guessing that there are at least some of us that would look past (or not
mind) the ad if the job looked good.

~~~
jhancock
All that and they don't bother to mention salary. Seriously, they want someone
"super-smart, motivated", blah, blah. They want to suck you dry so millions of
women can shop better and for what in return? To piss away your super-smart,
highly motivated existence programming Rails? Vision care? yeah, they do
apparently have a health policy that through no fault of their own, you can't
keep after they suck you dry. So what can you keep? Well, I'm sure the stock
option contract is 20 pages of pure "screw you". If it wasn't, why not publish
the options contract? They drop the hint several times that this may be a good
job for a perv that wants to collect data on millions of women!! What genius
thought dropping the "women, hint, hint!" line several times was a good idea.

No, the only thing you walk away from most any job with is $$$cash$$$....they
leave that part out!!!

The ad is well written. And cute. But here's my message to companies: Tell us
HOW MUCH!!!

wow, I sure woke up on the crabby side of the bed, today ;).

~~~
iron_ball
Just include a salary expectation with your resume and cover letter. Then if
they follow up, you know they're willing to negotiate around that number.
That's not so hard, right? Everyone knows if you're not a founder, you aren't
getting stock that's worth working for peanuts.

~~~
jhancock
"Everyone knows if you're not a founder, you aren't getting stock that's worth
working for peanuts."

Which is precisely why parading it as a perk makes the ad bad. A great startup
should publish their stock option agreements. Let people see how great it is.
"psst, I'm gonna show this secret agreement, don't tell anyone else what it
says..."

After all this time of so many thousands of startups, we've finally gotten to
a point of having a library of startup contracts, investment contracts, etc...
You should be able to say "We use Law Firm X's published stock agreement. Its
well vetted and easy to understand."

If you want to attract great talent, show them the money!!!

Transparency Rules!!!

------
brown9-2

         require 'mad_skills'
    

this is where I stopped reading.

~~~
jonursenbach
I stopped reading at "Job description written in Ruby", heh.

------
chaosmachine
There's a substitution cipher at the end. Spoiler alert:

zllh://ooo.kzghallgew.uge/yggvbgt

<http://www.shopittome.com/goodjob>

~~~
pilif
this simple rot-8 approach feels too simple for a puzzle like this.

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weavejester
I wonder if it would be a good idea to actually include _real_ code in a job
description, such as few choice code snippets from the company's source code.

~~~
eru
Like something that could be hairy, but isn't. Too show off how pleasant your
code is?

~~~
weavejester
Yes; something a few lines long that demonstrates a particularly pleasent
piece of code from your source tree. Obviously there are limits as to what you
can infer from such a small slice of code, but I think it would provide more
information about how the company develops software than most job descriptions
do.

------
jhancock
Here's what a start-up ad for a programmers should look like:

* mycomapny.com [link to google maps]

* tech skill required: x, y, z

* [full-time || contract] && [local || remote]

* growth or biz model [link to mycompany.com/biz_model]

* investment [link to mycompany.com/investment]

* salary range $x to $y depending on experience

* benefits - health care, etc [link to mystartup.com/employee/benefits]

* employee rules [link to meycompany.com/employee/handbook]

* stock options [link to mycompany/com/employee/options]

If you want more high quality applicants, provide these details up
front...Transparency Rules!!!

Skip the multi-paragraph fluff. You don't want to read it in the resumes, and
job searchers don't want to read through it the job ads. Also, skip the
puzzles. Puzzles limit your pipeline to those that have loads of time on their
hands to solve your captcha. Do you want an applicant that has loads of time
on their hands or the applicant that has the skills and right attitude?

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omgsean
Can someone explain why this position would require a bachelor's degree? Did
anyone actually learn any Ruby in school?

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youngian
Someone really oughta code up a resume in Ruby and submit it. I think they
wouldn't have any choice but to hire you.

~~~
texel
I had this idea months ago... but I have a job. I still call dibs on it.

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jseifer
Wouldn't work for this company. They clearly don't test their code.

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bayareaguy
Wow. A company with the balls to outsource their HR and management to a Ruby
script. Manfred Macx would be proud.

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patio11
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the bugs caused by unforeseen interaction
of a) turning &lt; and &gt; into HTML entities and then b) stuffing them in a
pre tag.

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hs
i used math notations <for intro> when i applied to grad school

something like ... there exist <my-name> such that bla <insert math mumbo-
jumbo describing me as a unique subset of engineers>

result? i got in and studied there

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cosmo7
Unsurprisingly, ubercool job ad is for a site that uses table layouts riddled
with inline CSS.

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maurycy
I do not find this code too nice.

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xenophanes
why don't the boolean methods have ?s in the names?

why did they put an english description too? either the ruby one is good or it
isn't. make up your minds.

