

Introducing the BankSimple Engineering Team - ihodes
http://www.banksimple.net/blog/2010/08/19/introducing-banksimple-engineering-team/

======
Calamitous
BankSimple looks like an awesome idea, and I wish these guys the best of luck
in getting it off the ground.

I would immediately move all my accounts to a bank that at least understood
what the hell actual customer service looked like, even at a distance. (HINT:
it's not a terminally chipper phone jockey who's missing their clue gland)

------
maxklein
The odds of this company succeeding are very, very low. It's a typical SF
startup - in love with technology and the startup scene, and not the customer.

Your main programming guy is a lisper? You have a "Creative Director"? You are
staffing up so quickly? You are bringing a pre-existing clique of people?
Erlang? Clojure? Scala?

And with such a small team, you're spreading it out across 3 offices?

This team seems like a technical circle-jerk. You're making a BANK, not a
programming language.

I'm sure that they will raise a lot of capital - but I really, really doubt
that a real and credible business will come out this. These people understand
technology, not banking or people. And the team build-out is reflecting this :
it's all about technology and not about people or emotions.

~~~
al3x
Hi Max,

Normally I wouldn't respond to a comment like this, but the value of Hacker
News is in fostering discussions about the business of startups. You actually
pose some interesting questions, and hopefully I can offer useful answers for
people who might come across this thread.

First off, we're not a "SF startup"; we're a distributed team. My co-founders
are in Brooklyn. I'm in Portland, along with two other employees. Our
engineers are in SF, but quite frankly, they could decide to move to Siberia
tomorrow and that'd be just fine.

If you read the blog that my co-founders have been contributing to over the
last year, you'll find that they're very much "in love with the customer", and
eager to explain how traditional banks have been doing those customers wrong.
As was previously noted here on HN, they've been personally emailing anyone
and everyone who signs up for more information about our service. The initial
product we're launching is based on direct feedback resulting from thousands
of those conversations with potential customers. We take their feedback very
seriously.

Now, question-by-question:

1\. Our Lead Engineer is not exclusively a Lisp programmer. He's worked in a
variety of languages, including Common Lisp, Erlang, Ruby, and most recently,
C#. I'm a big fan of "polyglot programming", and to me, Dave's ability to work
in a variety of languages is, to my mind, an asset and a testament to his
skill as a programmer.

2\. Yes, we have a Creative Director. Our business involves much more than
just a web presence, and we need much more than the average web designer.
Banking is a complex economic and social interaction in which design plays a
key role at every step. We chose someone not just with web, print, and
identity work in his portfolio, but someone with deep industrial design
experience. Bill earns the title of Creative Director through years of hard
work, service to his industry peers, and a commitment to approaching the
problem of designing a better banking experience holistically.

3\. We're staffing up fairly conservatively when you consider our mission.
This isn't just another build-it-in-a-weekend consumer web business. We're a
fraction of the size of the web teams and/or IT teams at most banks.

4\. Yes, we're hiring people who've worked effectively together. You'll find
many posts from VCs and entrepreneurs about the value of "putting the band
back together". I'm thrilled to have a team who are already in sync with one
another.

5\. Yes, Dave has worked in Erlang, and we're considering using technologies
like Riak that are developed in Erlang. And yes, we plan to work in Scala and
Clojure. I'm not sure why this is a question. They're great technologies. They
work well. Lots of people are using them, including people in the financial
services world who have run into the limitations of legacy technologies.
Interesting technologies keep developers happy, motivated, and learning.

6\. Yes, we're a distributed team. This should be nothing new in the tech
world, particularly in the startup community. Being distributed allows us to
work with talented people wherever they may be, keeps our costs down, and
forces us to communicate clearly and explicitly amongst one another. It also
lets us focus, and avoids the burdens and time-wasters of office water cooler
culture.

I don't think you've taken the time to read about our backgrounds. If you had,
you'd know that our CFO has spent years in the banking industry; that our CEO
has helped managed a multi-billion dollar hedge fund and run an online
marketplace for mortgages; that our Creative Director is an industry leader in
UX and has focused specifically on issues of humane product and service
design. I'm comfortable saying that our team has equal expertise in banking,
"people", and technology.

Of course, part of our company's thesis is that a bank run like a tech startup
will do better by its customers than a traditional bank or credit union. It
seems like you disagree on that point, which is puzzling for this forum, given
that so much of the Hacker News ethos is about making the world a better place
through technically-minded entrepreneurship. So yes, we have a startup
mentality, and people on our team are passionate about technology as well as
about our product and customers. I see no need to apologize for that.

We do understand that the people are going to be hesitant to trust a new
financial institution, as well they should be. The burden is on us to bridge
that trust gap and, frankly, to prove people like you wrong. I'm confident
that we will, and that we've picked the right team to do so.

Thanks for your questions, Max.

~~~
jacquesm
That's got to be one of the most gracious responses ever.

------
omouse
The mis-use of the title "engineer" is insulting to those in that profession
that earned that title. All I see are a bunch of computer programmers or
computer scientists. No engineers here.

~~~
BenS
Can you clarify? I've always thought of engineers as people who solve problems
by applying scientific knowledge. These guys seem to fit the bill, but I'm not
an engineer (by any definition) so I don't know the terms first-hand.

~~~
dpapathanasiou
He probably means that he took the Professional Engineer (PE) exam, and is
licensed in one or more states:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Engineer>

It's essentially a job requirement if you want to get into some types of
engineering fields (electrical, mechanical, civil, etc.)

