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[nycphp-jobs] CTO/Lead Engineer Opportunity

Kristina Anderson ka at kacomputerconsulting.com
Mon Apr 11 17:14:59 EDT 2011


Any article that references a TV show doesn't have much credibility in 
my book, I'm sorry to say.  And the ideas here are absurd.

As long as this company truly doesn't mind limiting their talent pool to 
inexperienced kids who enjoy working in a loud frat house alongside 
drunken morons who get nothing done although they are there 14 hours a 
day, and probably have deplorable personal hygiene to boot, and they 
truly feel that a person such as this can build quality software, they 
should be fine with a job post like this.

However I am very, very glad that I'm not an investor in this company, 
because this business plan is a recipe for disaster.    Speaking as 
someone who's old enough to be their mother, 25 year old kids THINK they 
have all the answers and us old folks know nothing.  They want to do 
everything differently than we did.

But usually things soon go horribly awry and someone has to clean up the 
mess...usually, one of us old fogies.

Matt, send in your resume now -- free BEER!  Wooooooooo.   It's not a 
job, it's a party!


On 4/11/2011 4:57 PM, Matt Juszczak wrote:
> Kristina,
>
> You and I are almost always on the same page, but here I have to 
> disagree with you.
>
> Please read this article:
>
> http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/13420/Startup-Culture-Lessons-From-Mad-Men.aspx 
>
>
> I assure you... that company has some of the best talent working for 
> it in the area.
>
> -Matt
>
> On Mon, 11 Apr 2011, Kristina Anderson wrote:
>
>> It may be becoming more common, but it's a total turnoff to most 
>> people.  It doesn't seem like good business to limit oneself to 
>> hiring those under 25 and/or those with alcohol abuse problems, 
>> especially for a CTO position...? You're automatically excluding the 
>> best talent from the search from the get-go, and attracting the sort 
>> of employee who won't be able to do the work properly, thereby 
>> resulting in a poor product.
>>
>> There's no way a job post like that can yield any "top talent".
>>
>> On 4/11/2011 4:46 PM, Matt Juszczak wrote:
>>> Kristina,
>>>
>>> In their defense, this kind of agile, work hard, play hard 
>>> environment is becoming much more common.  One of the largest 
>>> start-ups I know gladly gives free alcohol to their employees, and 
>>> yes, they drink during the day. But no is irresponsible, and it's 
>>> been rated one of the top companies to work for.  Like Nik's company 
>>> (I assume), they are looking for top talent and wouldn't hire people 
>>> who are likely to abuse the system.  My guess is (though I don't 
>>> know Nik) that his company also has an extremely relaxed vacation 
>>> policy, because it isn't about the time you take, it's about the 
>>> work you accomplish.
>>>
>>> -Matt
>>>
>>> On Mon, 11 Apr 2011, Kristina Anderson wrote:
>>>
>>>> These are the sorts of job posts that just  make me look forward to
>>>> switching to a different career... "kegerator" & "beer pong"?
>>>> I should want to hang out with you outside of work and watch you 
>>>> drink until
>>>> you puke while listening to loud rock & roll music?  (From the tone 
>>>> of the
>>>> below it seems like you  may be doing this during the workday!)
>>>>
>>>> Clearly nobody in this awesome company has yet seen their 25th 
>>>> birthday...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 4/11/2011 3:47 PM, Nik Bonaddio wrote:
>>>>       I'm not a recruiter. Recruiters are lame and have no idea what
>>>>       they're doing. I know exactly what I'm looking for, so I'm
>>>>       posting here.
>>>>
>>>>       ---
>>>>
>>>>       Let's start with the boring stuff up front: We're a small,
>>>>       agile, well-trafficked startup in the sports analytics space.
>>>>       We've been covered by TechCrunch, we've been written up in
>>>>       Sports Illustrated, and now we're going to revolutionize the way
>>>>       users consume and engage with sports content. Our founders are
>>>>       ballers, our advisors are even more ballerous, and just wait
>>>>       until you see our product..
>>>>
>>>>       If you're someone who loves sports and also loves building
>>>>       products, then we're your company. Even if you're not a huge
>>>>       sports fan, feel free to reach out to us - we're more interested
>>>>       in someone who knows how to get stuff done. If you're wondering
>>>>       what kind of people we're like socially, we have a kegerator in
>>>>       our office and our most played artist on iTunes is Animal
>>>>       Collective. You should be able to get our jokes and we should be
>>>>       able to want to hang out with you outside of work.
>>>>
>>>>       Our stack is built on PHP and MySQL, but we're considering
>>>>       moving to Couch or Mongo. What do you suggest? We'd love to
>>>>       know. We have a world-class designer and front-end developer on
>>>>       board, we need to find someone who is comfortable on the PHP
>>>>       backend, taking things from the browser-level all the way down
>>>>       to the DB. We're not looking for someone who is merely good;
>>>>       we're looking for great - '85 Bears great. Lemieux in the 91-92
>>>>       playoffs great. Lemonade and BBQ on a Summer afternoon great.
>>>>
>>>>       Skillsets:
>>>>
>>>>        o  Excellent PHP skills (should be comfortable building out an
>>>>           application scalable to 100,000 daily uniques)
>>>>        o  Knowledgeable of system-wide architecture (setting up
>>>>           version control, release engineering structs, etc.)
>>>>        o  Comfortable working in a fast-paced startup setting
>>>>        o  Familiarity with beer pong and general precepts of social
>>>>           skill
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>       Nice to have:
>>>>
>>>>        o  Familiarity with HTML/CSS/jQuery (not totally necessary as
>>>>           we already have a world-class designer and front-end)
>>>>        o  Sports fan (big, big plus - let us know what your favorite
>>>>           team is)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>       What we're not:
>>>>
>>>>        o  Some huge, boring company where you'll have meetings about
>>>>           meetings
>>>>        o  A company that works in a space that you could care less
>>>>           about
>>>>        o  A startup that values founder's valuations over the future
>>>>           gains of the employees
>>>>        o  A company founded by a bunch of suits who can't code Hello
>>>>           World in BASIC
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>       Even though we're a startup, this is a salary position. We'll
>>>>       shell out for the right employee. There is also a TON of equity
>>>>       involved; you're the third employee and huge part of our future
>>>>       success - we'll take care of you. You should ideally be in NYC,
>>>>       but that won't stop us from moving forward with the right
>>>>       person.
>>>>
>>>>       To apply, just send us a resume (please send nik at numberfire.com)
>>>>       and we'll go from there.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>





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