I was working for a big bank, facing moral harassment almost every day from a shitty manager. The thing with moral harassment is it don't happen out of nothing, it is gradual. The manager was testing the waters, every day making the insult a bit harder than the day before. One day he actually cursed me in a meeting with 14 other people and I decided I had enough. Reported him to HR and quit. After that I was working on a game, that I was going to try to make a living out of. I was decided not to go back to work for a while. Then, on HN I saw those to topics - who wants to be hired and who is hiring. I selected 6 openings that seems interesting to me and send an email. 4 wrote me back. 3 gave me a coding challenge. 1 Hired me. Been working with them for almost 3 years now. Great company. Really nice people.
There was another post in this thread that basically said, “toughen up buttercup” that I can no longer find. While I agree that this is a dickish thing to say, I can’t help but somewhat agree with the sentiment that tech workers are perhaps a little bit better off than the average person and don’t have a lot of perspective here about how bad it can get. Not saying that it’s ok, rather that when you can easily find another job it’s pretty easy to take a principled stand.
I flew for a living for a long time and was verbally harassed at many jobs by a superior. I remember talking on the radio once during a checkride - “do you have shit in your mouth? Because you sound like it.”
He was just being an asshole to rile me up, but it remains an asshole thing to say, and you have to deal with it because he literally holds your career in his hands. Personally, in that moment I vowed I’d never do that to anyone - but it doesn’t mean it isn’t widespread and it doesn’t mean quitting was an option.
Other times in my career I was expressedly told violate regulations or do legal but wildly unsafe things; because I had massive student loan debt at the time (I paid all that shit off eventually greatest feeling in the world), rent to pay, I had to make a lot of compromises I’m not proud of retrospectively because I did not want to be homeless or laid off looking for a flying job in 2009.
To act as though everyone can quit if their ego gets bruised by some jackass is the height of privilege. Many many other careers do not have that option. Not saying it is right in the least, but I feel a lot of people would really benefit from an understanding that how principled a person can be often practically changed by exterior circumstances.
That’s the thing I want people to take away from all this - a sort of “dialectical materialism” sort of view - that being able to quit without worse consequences than a bruised ego is unto itself a sort of prosperity many many people do not have.
I hear you, being able to leave a job and quickly find a new one is a great thing to have in this field, and it helps in having a great sense of job security.
The issue isn't that these jobs pay well and are great to work in so we should deal with any bs that flys. It's that people don't deserve to be harrassed, regardless of how "good" their work is.
If you make 2 million a year as an investment banker, you don't deserve to be unfairly humiliated at your job more than any part time fast food worker.
No but at least to me that is the implication. And I think it’s fantastic if you can, but a lot of times on here I see people who are completely out of touch with the material reality people live in.
Beyond that, there is a certain frailty to all this stuff too, nobody deserves to be treated poorly, but the inability to bounce back from that is not great either
Because other people have to basically behave like wage slaves, doesn't mean that is fine and programmers should just shut up and withstand abuse.
This is the same argument over and over that IT has it too good and maybe when there are layoffs or abuse scandals, some people rejoice in knowing they too are suffering like others. Like it's deserved.
It isn’t deserved, but also, you do have to be able to withstand some abuse in this life.
Not saying I agree with it, nor am I saying it should remain this way? But having the fortitude to tough out some shit is a valuable skill. Not saying that OP doesn’t, but also, a lot of people don’t.
> I remember talking on the radio once during a checkride - “do you have shit in your mouth? Because you sound like it.”
Reading this already sets me off. Why the FUCK do people have uninstigated belligerence at work and to the general at large? What is their problem?
Why can't a simple, "Can you speak louder? I can't hear you." suffice? I'm so sick of people not having basic decency. This kind of person needs to fuck off.
It wasn’t even that, lol, he just didn’t like how I sounded - it wasn’t even improper phraseology or anything he just didn’t like it.
Regardless, this sort of thing is not uncommon - it’s not right, but learning how to survive and withstand things that aren’t right so you can accomplish the things you want to accomplish is valuable. I actually - naively, thought academia would be different after a decade in aviation, hilariously academia was far more asshole-ish as a matter of percentage.
I had a very good advisor and instructors so I was spared most of the obnoxiousness, but I did see some sociopathic behavior. It’s life - between 10 and 20 percent of people are going to fucking suck.
"Toughen up buttercup" works fine when there is labor surplus. But during labor constraint the workers have all the cards. If it costs $30k to hire a new employee like it does in tech, you better treat them nicer than something like Burger King.
This is my first time hearing of 'moral harassment'. Is that an actual phrase or is English not your native language? Reading the rest of your comment it seems the manager was just a bully, but please elaborate if that understanding is incorrect!
> They would be permanently traumatized by the level of aggression in other jobs
Started working when I was 15. First in a printing company, later on factory floor. Lots and lots of funny inappropriate jokes. Not even once insulted by a superior or a colleague.
> privileged to be able to walk away
Some people will take abuse for money, I don't.
> delicate snowflakes
Bully me in an environment where it's OK for me to punch you in the face and find out how much of a snowflake I really am
I can very much relate to your situation but unfortunately not sure what to do.
I’m doing some contract work on the side. Every day I’m like if this guy harasses me again I’m going to put my notice in go work for less money but unfortunately I’m not even sure what decision should I take since the job is high paying but on the hand the contract work is with the startup and pays less money compared to what I make
I wish economy was better so I could leave my toxic job.
I like that you curated your search, hiring would be in such a better place if everyone did that. Anymore, every single opening gets spammed thousands of resumes with absolutely no skill or history relevant to the company. Makes it harder for the hiring side and people like yourself.
To be honest it took me about 6 hours to go through all the openings, selecting the ones I was interested in, writing a custom email and adapting my resumee to fit that particular opening. It was actually work.
> I selected 6 openings that seems interesting to me and send an email. 4 wrote me back. 3 gave me a coding challenge. 1 Hired me. Been working with them for almost 3 years now.
2021. Different time, different hiring attitudes. A shame 2024 is no longer an employee's market.
got contacted by a trading firm when one of the founders saw one of my Show HN posts. Was my breakthrough into the quant / hft industry and I now run my own trading firm: that one event massively changed the trajectory of my entire life.
I've had 3 jobs in last 7 years, 2 were through HN. The first one through here was alright, the pay was shit but the work itself was very interesting. Stayed there for 3 years and learned a lot, though the working conditions were terrible. I was constantly working 12-13 hour days and barely making anything.
I posted here again in late 2019 and a recruiter asked me if I wanted to move to Europe for work. Not seeing any future back home, I gambled and said yes. Interviewed with the company for a few months and eventually moved to EU in late 2020 and been here since then. I never got to thank the recruiter in person as he had already left by the time I started at the new job. His one email in Oct 2019 was something that dramatically changed the trajectory of my life. Hi J, if you're reading this! :)
I've been posting on Who is Hiring threads again in the last few months but the situation has changed drastically now. I need a work permit to stay here and not many companies (at least on HN) are offering that. I guess it's time to pack my bags and move again to places unknown.
I'm not from US actually, but from India. Nevertheless I don't think I'm the right person to answer this question :)
I've never really fit anywhere, so moving to a new country wasn't a big deal, just a change of scenery and weather. Given a chance I'd probably move even more up north where it's colder.
I do immensely appreciate the increased quality of life -- 24x7 clean water and electricity, comfortable and (almost) punctual public transport, fair wages, focus on having a life outside work; and an escape from a society which strictly adheres to traditional norms.
> In what country are you living now
I'd rather not mention it out loud, since this account already contains some other identifiable info. I hope you understand.
I've been on both ends of successful hiring via "Who's Hiring?" more than once. It seemed like CraigsList was really useful back in the mid-aughts, then HN lists started to dominate the "interesting jobs without BS job board" category.
You're going to get an overwhelming number of "yup, worked for me in 2XXX" responses. I'm not sure what the point of the question is, though.
The job market for us is very different now than even a handful of years ago, so any results won't be representative of now. And asking only for survivors won't tell you how successful the postings really were to either side, just that eventually the job was filled from here and not another source.
Me! When I was in highschool I started emailing companies from the whoishiring thread, managed to find an apprenticeship in SF. My thinking was that before I went to college to study computer science I should check to see if I liked writing code.
Turns out I love writing code and don't care much for computer science. I've been a software engineer (NOT a computer scientist) ever since.
Thank you to Mek, Stephen, and Matt for taking a chance on me.
> Turns out I love writing code and don't care much for computer science. I've been a software engineer (NOT a computer scientist) ever since.
That was a piece of advice I wish I had when I was in high school. It wasn't until halfway though college that I understood the difference. It was abundantly obvious that the vast majority of CS students should have been in a "Software Engineering" program, too.
Why do you think such students should have been in SE instead? Because it aligns more with their goals?
Perhaps you are right, but I am thankful for my CS background despite being a SWE myself.
Understand that I am also close to the intelligence level of crayon-eating compared to most on this site. I felt like my unspectacular public state university level CS degree wouldn't even hold a candle to some of the people's education in this very thread like the one commenter who studied at MIT.
However, I still believe what I learned was extremely valuable. In fact, I am sadden by my level of understanding and I wish I knew more CS. Just because I do not apply pure CS every single day does not mean that my decisions are not influenced by what I learned. At worst, my knowledge has never been a hindrance.I refuse to believe that knowledge can ever be useless. Not applicable != useless.
Genuine question though, what would a software engineering program provide that a computer science student would struggle to understand?
I think you can have an SE track with the appropriate amount of CS background. You'd have to, to be a functional engineer. (Then again, some I've worked with...)
One reason I also wish I'd gone along an SE track is that it would likely have given me a lot more experience actually doing what I do for work. Using version control, working with others in a group setting, actually making software.
Having done a software engineering degree (albeit 25 years ago now) you should probably not expect it to be any more practical in that way. We had only a handful of extra mandatory modules over the CS requirements (I think on working on larger systems) but no extra practical programming.
> Using version control, working with others in a group setting, actually making software.
aye, this. in my experience hard part isn't doing the actual coding bits, it's ironing out the Requirements, stuffing them into JIRA, building the Interface document to cover what we're coding, writing documentation, and making sure the new guy doesn't break the version control.
Coding the specification isn't hard once we have them. A lot of that is outsourced in my org, esp. fluff related to a few areas like UX. But the hard part is getting there, and the engineering processes and mentality to do so.
I didn't go to college, I got out of high school, took care of my mom and almost immediately worked for an ISP as customer service, worked my way up over 3 buyouts, and 20 years to be a sysadmin for the company that everyone depended on.
Sadly something I only recently allowed myself to understand is that I really don't have passion for networking, I absolutely love coding and creating new integrations, interfaces and backend, I did a lot of it to patch holes in the company i worked for and streamline my own and others work.
I'm a remote contractor for that same company now still doing the networking and some dev work for them but really want to get out and find a company that I can focus more on the DevOps side.
Working and taking care of your mom right after graduating highschool sounds like a lot of responsibility. Massive respect. I hope your job transition goes well.
SE programs are scams in the U.S. unfortunately. Comp sci is the only universally recognized and mostly standard degree. SE isn't even an option for many hiring/job app platforms like IBM.
I ended up working for 2 years before I went to school, and it made a lot of things easier. When I graduated I was very certain that I wanted to go back to industry rather than go to academia. Definitely different jobs and skillsets.
I completed a BS in Software Engineering a few years ago, and my schools program was almost identical to the CS program. The courses it lacked were (as I recall) Operating Systems and Networking (I’m a bit sad I didn’t get to take those, but I had to finish the work online, and the CS degree wasn’t available as an online program)
I’m not certain, but I think most SE programs are largely CS programs
I got my current job by posting on a "who wants to be hired?" thread. I was contacted by the person who ended up being my manager and got fast tracked through the interviewing process. It's at a company that I probably never would have heard of otherwise (Fullstory), but I like it enough that I'm still there ~4.5 years later.
On the flip side, I can think of three people who were hired via "who's hiring?" posts I put up.
More times than I can readily remember. A number of contracts, a number of full time jobs. Have attempted to hire on here a couple times as well though I don't recall it working out. I've been on here since 2007 though, so recent experience is substantially different. It's as bad as the dotcom bust in 2001 the last year or two.
I generally prefer YC companies and early stage startups, so it's generally been good for me.
Really? I wouldn't have thunk that this place would have contract roles. Were they w2 or c2c or 1099? The last 2 are super hard to come by. Got any tips to share on where to find such roles?
There's a monthly "seeking freelancer" thread, or at least there used to be. I also always mention my comfort working contract with people even when I'm interviewing for full time roles, in case that's helpful for them. "Any way that gets the money from your bank account to mine".
Edit: Also, I do recommend the "startup match" system they run, I've been having good success with that this year, found my current role and a number of solid roles that were candidates for acceptance. Be forewarned, that there are many well-intentioned but unserious people on there, so you definitely have to do a ton of legwork. Don't judge a book by it's cover, some of the best roles were people who frankly seemed somewhat unhinged but ended up being really interesting and compelling.
I am currently on my third client in last 4 years from HN who wants to be hired thread. One very good client, stayed 18 months with them, significant equity appreciation until now; a very bad “deadbeat” client who still owes me $8K in back wages (6 months overdue); and my current client of 4 months, so far so good.
One thing I learnt is to request HN username and review their post history, and consider suspicious the ones who claim not having one or not participating in HN discussions.
It's been a larger sequence of events until I got hired, but it all started by having shared a little side project[1] here that hit the front page in 2016.
Back then, Zach[2] from Timber.io reached out to me since they had just recently launched a startup in the logging space. We had a good exchange, but didn't get to work together. (I was burned out from my job and wanted to go back to university to study computer science, and felt that accepting "yet another job" wouldn't give me the perspective and foundational knowledge I was looking for. So I proposed a ridiculous rate that they understandably declined.)
However, we kept in touch over the years and I had good memories from our conversations.
During my studies, I fell in love with Rust. When I finished my bachelor's degree in 2020, I was looking for jobs in Rust that were specifically not in the blockchain/crypto currency industry (disqualifying at least 90% of the postings I had seen). Then Vector[3] caught my eye – a project by Timber.io. So I reached out to Zach again, and even though I had been fairly inexperienced in Rust, they took a shot on me. Eventually, Timber.io got bought by Datadog in 2021, and I sticked around until the end of 2022. After that, I was fully focused on finishing my master's degree.
To close the circle, I ended up founding a new company with Zach at the beginning of this year. We're still in stealth, but working on open source real-time video communication. If you're interested in tackling hard challenges in infrastructure/networking/native UI with Rust, please feel free to reach out – we have some open positions and I would love to reach for the same community that has once so openly accepted me.
Not directly, but someone on HN reached out to me in 2014 to ask if I had time to review their new app. Turned out it was a job board (can’t remember what the USP was) and among the scraped initial data was a GOV.UK job ad that ended up being the single most influential position to my career that I’ve ever had.
I'd applied to maybe 20 positions that were applicable in the past year. I got either no response or a boilerplate rejection from most of them. 2-3 I did get a reply from. Got to final round on one of them.
I've gotten about 3 responses when posting to the who is looking post.
It can really vary, and depends on what you are looking for, what tools/tech you have experience in and experience.
My whole career in technology is because of a "Who's Hiring?" thread back in 2012 or so.
Emailed the hiring email address in the thread for a company that seemed to suit my interests and abilities at the time and was off to the races. I moved from a rural area to a Midwestern state for the gig. Every job I've had since that job has been with companies comprised of permutations of those same coworkers from the first gig.
I'd probably still be doing roofing or something if I hadn't been an HN reader at that time.
I was extended a good opportunity to do entry level web dev but left the interview because I felt the coding puzzle was too hard for the role, even tho I could’ve solved it. Computer Science/math heavy and easy if already familiar. I still feel bad and entitled about that but I acted on the signal I felt and told the truth.
Aside, I am all for suitably difficult challenges, and I distinguish engineer from developer. Dev shouldn’t get CS stuff, Eng should. Mention it to benefit other hiring managers who may be reading, if it rings fair.
Once at Singly, in 2010-ish. Was a contractor for about 4 months, they brought me on full time, and I spent about a year there, left to go to one of the big 4 consulting companies, spent 7 years there.
The second was at Greenhouse (the ATS) in 2021 -- was there until Jan of this year.
I found my first full-time remote W2 through HN back in 2013/2014. It wasn't a Who's Hiring post (were we running those back then?), but rather an HN discussion that linked out to a blog post at an organization that felt like an excellent cultural and technical match, despite being a couple timezones away. That kicked off an email thread with their tech leadership, and I had a job within about a month. Stayed there for four pretty good years!
I was hired after interacting in a comment thread with a founder that was building the same thing I was NIH-ing at my current job. Easy fit to come on since I was currently doing it, but not ultimately a great fit. It pulled me out of my first five year gig at a huge corporation and helped me see the extreme opposite of that, and paid hugely better. I don't think it was a huge resume pad, as it wasn't a well known FAANG, but I appreciated the perspective it gave me and the redirection of my career.
The opposite, I hired someone through HN. Although i didn't realize for a while.
I talked my company into posting a HN post. All messages that recruiting didn't filter went to me. There was an obvious difference between those responses and other posts. Not necessarily better, just different.
One woman I hired reminded me a while later that she had originally "applied" via the who's hiring thread. I missed it at first but it made sense.
Not specifically the HN who's hiring etc threads, but through YCombinator's job board I was approached, interviewed, and hired. Loved the company, work was fun (even if not my favorite language), but I upset the CTO by questioning his Golden Boy, the CTO stole an idea wholesale from me after telling me it was a bad idea, and then fired me with no specific reasons.
If it weren't for that CTO I'd likely still be working there.
This is an issue I'm having right now with a small startup. The founder calls all shots and some people upset him and got fired promptly (for what I'm told, not so fair reasons). I'm always working like I'm stepping on eggshels. It's making me really wary of applying to other startups in the future.
1: contacted me based on a comment I made on an unrelated thread
2: from who wants to be hired that I reached out to
In total I reached out to about 30 people from “who wants to be hired”, I heard back from 19 of them, 9 of them went on to interview (the others had already found jobs, I went back a few months looking - at least 1 of my hires had only posted 4 months ago), and I hired 2 of them.
Across all sources I interviewed 30 people (between 1-4 interviews depending on how far they got, around 70 interviews total) and hired 6.
I’m not sure if you think that proves or disproves your point, just wanted to provide the data.
I've found a few clients through the Freelancer/Seeking Freelancer posts over the years. It's not a huge contributor to my pipeline, but it's not zero.
I was working on my first "startup" (if you want to call it that) and wasn't getting traction. The owner of a software consulting firm found me on Hacker News and brought me in as his first employee on a massive contract. We grew the team substantially, made great money and that lead to doing a real startup after. And then another. All from a post I made on a hiring thread.
Man, that's amazing. Glad it worked out. Sometimes I miss the old days of the internet where everyone was helping each other, so it's great to hear stories of it still happening on HN.
Interestingly, two or three years ago I sent a few emails via Who is Hiring and I got probably 3/4 response rate, and an offer (which I refused in the end, staying in my current company). This year my current company is not in a good shape, and I sent perhaps 20 emails and got NOTHING nothing at all back.
My thinking is because this year I'm 40 years old and ATS software now marks me as a dinosaur.
I saw this just before you edited. Don't worry I won't reveal anything. But I wanted to say that - although I hope you're wrong about what you wrote - you might also be right, and if so it is awful. Some people cannot separate one thing from another.
I applied for a job from a December 2020 Who's Hiring post, started in early February 2021.
I'm still with the posted position: I really like the company and the people I work with. It's certainly one of the better jobs I've had in my career.
In my 2020 job search, I gravitated towards "Who's Hiring" for a few reasons: I interacted directly with hiring managers, and I prefer early-stage companies. The concise nature of posts makes it easy to flag the ones I want to pursue. The fact that it's once a month means I know that someone is actively hiring.
In contrast, I don't like working with non-technical "middlemen" recruiters, I don't like FAANG-style hiring, long job postings make it hard to narrow down which ones I want to pursue, and I'm always afraid that I'm applying to a job posting that's "for show" and I'm just wasting my time. (IE, some managers always try to keep a few open positions as a way of working large company politics without seriously intending on filling those positions.)
I was hired, just reached out to the contact on a "Who's Hiring" thread for a company doing work I had some experience with but was looking to expand on. So far so good.
For background the hire before that was through a colleague and the job I got before that was through a news list. I don't really ever get any success through more traditional job seeking services.
Happened to me once. I was only contacted by the company that hired me (and like 2-3 spam emails) so I wouldn't really count on HN as my main strategy.
I have the best job in my career and I was hired from responding to a who's hiring thread. wish I could give more details, but any single data point about the firm yields who it is.
generally, the company was looking for a very unique form of talent driven by a certain attitude and experience. they developed tools for verifying and filtering for it. if you've read any william gibson novels the firm would fit right into something he would describe.
if I were to characterize it, I'd say someone who has been any one of a FOSS contributor, bootstrapped founder, hacker, competitor especially elite level or minor fame in anything, autodidact, amateurist, performing artist, among other high competence bars that demonstrate tacit knowledge, focus, clarity, humility, reflexive curiosity, and related qualities, then imagine a firm that had somehow managed to quietly collect scores of them.
I posted (about three years ago now) in a Who Wants to be Hired thread. Admittedly, it was kind of on a whim, since I’d just left a job in operations after feeling burnt out, and thought I might dip my toes in the water of software dev full-time. I was contacted by four or five companies, I interviewed with three, and landed a gig with the company I’m still with currently.
For what was a two sentence post I made thinking it wouldn’t really amount to anything, it turned out to be one of the best moves I’ve made. (For both parties, I’d say.)
I didn't get hired through HN personally, however I did publish a Whos Hiring? post for an opening on my team a few years ago and we found a great frontend engineer.
I'm super happy about the practice overall and I hope it continues!
In 2019 I posted for the first time in the “Who wants to be hired” thread. A few days later I got an email from a company and went through their hiring process. I’m still there today and over the last 3 months I hired 6 people I found through HN (combo of “Who wants to be hired” outreach and responses to our “Who’s hiring” comment).
In addition to that, I’ve received 3-4 requests via email to Interview for a position given things I’ve talked about on HN (various technologies/frameworks/libraries/etc).
I got my first job through Who Wants To Be Hired in 2019. An engineer at the company reached out to refer me based on my resume. It was very good for allowing me to break into the industry, and it was a great place.
Two years ago I was contacted for 2/3 interviews. One interview went not finalising as they were looking for a different position; another one was a very early startup that look for a part time employeer; the third one was really close to the offer. I decided to stop the negotiations because war in Russia started and the company was based in Russia, so I was scared to be impacted by sanctions.
A friend of mine found a job in a startup through HN.
I had around 10 interviews via HN jobs, and around 50ish through the startup match making thing.
7/10 job interviews were fake jobs that actually didn't exist and where there's not even a budget available for them. These jobs were abused as early customer feedback and I didn't believe what happened there. I was basically braindumped.
The interviews from the startup matchmaking site were also kind of ridiculous. More bullshit consultants there than actual founders or actual developers that could or want to be building anything. These consultants want to hire you as a cheap developer, not as a founder, and definitely not as a shareholder. Happened so many times that I am not using this site for anything startup related anymore.
In general I'd argue that HN has a huge vetting problem, and by vetting I mean whether or not the intent of the people attending there come with honest intentions as to both their experience (which pretty much is almost always totally made up if you discuss more technical problems) and the idea of putting a lot of work into a problem to solve it (a _lot_ of people think that having a startup gig on the weekend, but only afternoons, leads to anything successful).
Most people come with so high expectations that it feels like being inside a ponzi community. Startups are a percentage game of luck, and you can only get an advantage if you have the right team at the right time, which implies that teams have to be absurdly motivated by a problem.
The people I found on this site are the opposite of that. They see it as a way to make quick cash because "they heard this is how to get rich fast".
I was very disappointed and am now much more involved in our local startup related meetups and events, and found a lot of team members through that.
Twice actually. One time thru who's hiring and once thru who wants to be hired. Both were great jobs that I enjoyed. Good way to get straight to the hiring manager
I wanted to move to Denmark and saw a startup looking for an engineering lead. I applied, received a coding challenge, was invited for some interviews with the engineering team, after I came back home I had an online interview with the CEO (which to me felt like the worst interview in my life), and was offered the job along with a relocation package.
I landed a remote internship at a stealth Startup this February. The pay wasn't mentioned nor even discussed, but they offered me more than I expected.
My current and previous position were found through HN (and the one before that through Reddit). I've also hired through HN a number of times for other positions at the same companies with pretty good success.
I posted a "Who's Hiring" post as an employee seeking a referral bonus. I got a few leads from that and ultimately referred two of them, one of whom we hired and is still working with us (and me) nearly three years later.
I was hired for my current role at Cortical Labs via a “Who wants to be hired?” thread a year ago. First time I had tried via HN, I had a great experience and I recommend trying it if you haven’t.
I think it was almost 7 years ago but I was flown from VA->SF and interviewed for a company that I ultimately didn't end up getting an offer for, but it was a good experience
Yup: I had reached out to a small business owner (had to hunt down his email) to pick his brain on CRMs. That one phone call turned into me consulting for him for a short period of time.
I got hired at my current company back in 2022 through their post on a Who’s Hiring post here. Likely never would have heard of them otherwise, but glad I did!
I found my first job out of school and my current job both through HN Who's Hiring. I have also hired 2 people myself from posts I made to Who's Hiring.
I'd love to list the founders on here who reached out and totally wasted my time trying to figure out how they should build the team they are hiring for vs trying to hire me the couple of times I posted on here about working with one of you. Totally overt bait and switch. I'm pretty sure a bunch of you would go "hmm, surprised those guys did that" given they're "known".
Some scammer "founder" invented a "job" to pick my brain while pretending to be hiring. Absolute liar. One of those customer/feedback chat widgets with video call features.
The startup was ServiceBell. It was a feature company in a crowded market with little defensibility. They're still around.
It's easy to get rich quick in business when you're dishonest for a short time, but it's slightly more difficult to be honest, trustworthy, and not a pathological liar. Karma, reputation, and the law eventually catch up with shady people who didn't learn anything about the social contract from their parents.
Sorry, I’m not really sure what part of my comment is disrespectful other than you may disagree with it. Reality certainly doesn’t align with the assertion that eventually justice is metered out to people doing bad things. Do you have evidence that it does?
I used a throwaway account because I was hired through HN. The work environment was terrible, extremely stressful, and led me to become very depressed. It wasn't until I shared my experiences with a friend, who was shocked and convinced me to quit, that I realized how bad it had been.
This hasn't completely discouraged me from being hired through HN in similar situations, but I will definitely do more research on the company beforehand.
This comment was rewritten by AI to anonymize the writing style.
I flew for a living for a long time and was verbally harassed at many jobs by a superior. I remember talking on the radio once during a checkride - “do you have shit in your mouth? Because you sound like it.”
He was just being an asshole to rile me up, but it remains an asshole thing to say, and you have to deal with it because he literally holds your career in his hands. Personally, in that moment I vowed I’d never do that to anyone - but it doesn’t mean it isn’t widespread and it doesn’t mean quitting was an option.
Other times in my career I was expressedly told violate regulations or do legal but wildly unsafe things; because I had massive student loan debt at the time (I paid all that shit off eventually greatest feeling in the world), rent to pay, I had to make a lot of compromises I’m not proud of retrospectively because I did not want to be homeless or laid off looking for a flying job in 2009.
To act as though everyone can quit if their ego gets bruised by some jackass is the height of privilege. Many many other careers do not have that option. Not saying it is right in the least, but I feel a lot of people would really benefit from an understanding that how principled a person can be often practically changed by exterior circumstances.
That’s the thing I want people to take away from all this - a sort of “dialectical materialism” sort of view - that being able to quit without worse consequences than a bruised ego is unto itself a sort of prosperity many many people do not have.
The issue isn't that these jobs pay well and are great to work in so we should deal with any bs that flys. It's that people don't deserve to be harrassed, regardless of how "good" their work is.
If you make 2 million a year as an investment banker, you don't deserve to be unfairly humiliated at your job more than any part time fast food worker.
They neither stated nor suggested that.
Beyond that, there is a certain frailty to all this stuff too, nobody deserves to be treated poorly, but the inability to bounce back from that is not great either
This is the same argument over and over that IT has it too good and maybe when there are layoffs or abuse scandals, some people rejoice in knowing they too are suffering like others. Like it's deserved.
Not saying I agree with it, nor am I saying it should remain this way? But having the fortitude to tough out some shit is a valuable skill. Not saying that OP doesn’t, but also, a lot of people don’t.
Reading this already sets me off. Why the FUCK do people have uninstigated belligerence at work and to the general at large? What is their problem?
Why can't a simple, "Can you speak louder? I can't hear you." suffice? I'm so sick of people not having basic decency. This kind of person needs to fuck off.
Regardless, this sort of thing is not uncommon - it’s not right, but learning how to survive and withstand things that aren’t right so you can accomplish the things you want to accomplish is valuable. I actually - naively, thought academia would be different after a decade in aviation, hilariously academia was far more asshole-ish as a matter of percentage.
I had a very good advisor and instructors so I was spared most of the obnoxiousness, but I did see some sociopathic behavior. It’s life - between 10 and 20 percent of people are going to fucking suck.
Started working when I was 15. First in a printing company, later on factory floor. Lots and lots of funny inappropriate jokes. Not even once insulted by a superior or a colleague.
> privileged to be able to walk away
Some people will take abuse for money, I don't.
> delicate snowflakes
Bully me in an environment where it's OK for me to punch you in the face and find out how much of a snowflake I really am
But then you proceed to do exactly that!
This kind of behavior is inexcusable regardless of how bad others have it. Did you ever think that maybe your friend was just an asshole?
Taking away the value I produce is the consequence of your actions.
Yes, let's just keep taking that day in and day out in a professional setting.
I’m doing some contract work on the side. Every day I’m like if this guy harasses me again I’m going to put my notice in go work for less money but unfortunately I’m not even sure what decision should I take since the job is high paying but on the hand the contract work is with the startup and pays less money compared to what I make
I wish economy was better so I could leave my toxic job.
Some managers are really pain in the ass
I like that you curated your search, hiring would be in such a better place if everyone did that. Anymore, every single opening gets spammed thousands of resumes with absolutely no skill or history relevant to the company. Makes it harder for the hiring side and people like yourself.
2021. Different time, different hiring attitudes. A shame 2024 is no longer an employee's market.
How is that life anyways? I know very little about it?
I posted here again in late 2019 and a recruiter asked me if I wanted to move to Europe for work. Not seeing any future back home, I gambled and said yes. Interviewed with the company for a few months and eventually moved to EU in late 2020 and been here since then. I never got to thank the recruiter in person as he had already left by the time I started at the new job. His one email in Oct 2019 was something that dramatically changed the trajectory of my life. Hi J, if you're reading this! :)
I've been posting on Who is Hiring threads again in the last few months but the situation has changed drastically now. I need a work permit to stay here and not many companies (at least on HN) are offering that. I guess it's time to pack my bags and move again to places unknown.
I've never really fit anywhere, so moving to a new country wasn't a big deal, just a change of scenery and weather. Given a chance I'd probably move even more up north where it's colder.
I do immensely appreciate the increased quality of life -- 24x7 clean water and electricity, comfortable and (almost) punctual public transport, fair wages, focus on having a life outside work; and an escape from a society which strictly adheres to traditional norms.
> In what country are you living now
I'd rather not mention it out loud, since this account already contains some other identifiable info. I hope you understand.
You're going to get an overwhelming number of "yup, worked for me in 2XXX" responses. I'm not sure what the point of the question is, though.
The job market for us is very different now than even a handful of years ago, so any results won't be representative of now. And asking only for survivors won't tell you how successful the postings really were to either side, just that eventually the job was filled from here and not another source.
Turns out I love writing code and don't care much for computer science. I've been a software engineer (NOT a computer scientist) ever since.
Thank you to Mek, Stephen, and Matt for taking a chance on me.
That was a piece of advice I wish I had when I was in high school. It wasn't until halfway though college that I understood the difference. It was abundantly obvious that the vast majority of CS students should have been in a "Software Engineering" program, too.
Perhaps you are right, but I am thankful for my CS background despite being a SWE myself.
Understand that I am also close to the intelligence level of crayon-eating compared to most on this site. I felt like my unspectacular public state university level CS degree wouldn't even hold a candle to some of the people's education in this very thread like the one commenter who studied at MIT.
However, I still believe what I learned was extremely valuable. In fact, I am sadden by my level of understanding and I wish I knew more CS. Just because I do not apply pure CS every single day does not mean that my decisions are not influenced by what I learned. At worst, my knowledge has never been a hindrance.I refuse to believe that knowledge can ever be useless. Not applicable != useless.
Genuine question though, what would a software engineering program provide that a computer science student would struggle to understand?
One reason I also wish I'd gone along an SE track is that it would likely have given me a lot more experience actually doing what I do for work. Using version control, working with others in a group setting, actually making software.
aye, this. in my experience hard part isn't doing the actual coding bits, it's ironing out the Requirements, stuffing them into JIRA, building the Interface document to cover what we're coding, writing documentation, and making sure the new guy doesn't break the version control.
Coding the specification isn't hard once we have them. A lot of that is outsourced in my org, esp. fluff related to a few areas like UX. But the hard part is getting there, and the engineering processes and mentality to do so.
Sadly something I only recently allowed myself to understand is that I really don't have passion for networking, I absolutely love coding and creating new integrations, interfaces and backend, I did a lot of it to patch holes in the company i worked for and streamline my own and others work.
I'm a remote contractor for that same company now still doing the networking and some dev work for them but really want to get out and find a company that I can focus more on the DevOps side.
I’m not certain, but I think most SE programs are largely CS programs
On the flip side, I can think of three people who were hired via "who's hiring?" posts I put up.
I generally prefer YC companies and early stage startups, so it's generally been good for me.
now companies are worried about that classification
Edit: Also, I do recommend the "startup match" system they run, I've been having good success with that this year, found my current role and a number of solid roles that were candidates for acceptance. Be forewarned, that there are many well-intentioned but unserious people on there, so you definitely have to do a ton of legwork. Don't judge a book by it's cover, some of the best roles were people who frankly seemed somewhat unhinged but ended up being really interesting and compelling.
One thing I learnt is to request HN username and review their post history, and consider suspicious the ones who claim not having one or not participating in HN discussions.
A longer comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39311784
They had a good "vibe" from their I want to get hired post.
Got them their first gig in the tech space. Now with me at another tech play.
This place is great for connecting, the signal is way above noise.
Back then, Zach[2] from Timber.io reached out to me since they had just recently launched a startup in the logging space. We had a good exchange, but didn't get to work together. (I was burned out from my job and wanted to go back to university to study computer science, and felt that accepting "yet another job" wouldn't give me the perspective and foundational knowledge I was looking for. So I proposed a ridiculous rate that they understandably declined.)
However, we kept in touch over the years and I had good memories from our conversations.
During my studies, I fell in love with Rust. When I finished my bachelor's degree in 2020, I was looking for jobs in Rust that were specifically not in the blockchain/crypto currency industry (disqualifying at least 90% of the postings I had seen). Then Vector[3] caught my eye – a project by Timber.io. So I reached out to Zach again, and even though I had been fairly inexperienced in Rust, they took a shot on me. Eventually, Timber.io got bought by Datadog in 2021, and I sticked around until the end of 2022. After that, I was fully focused on finishing my master's degree.
To close the circle, I ended up founding a new company with Zach at the beginning of this year. We're still in stealth, but working on open source real-time video communication. If you're interested in tackling hard challenges in infrastructure/networking/native UI with Rust, please feel free to reach out – we have some open positions and I would love to reach for the same community that has once so openly accepted me.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12830763
[2] https://zach.sh
[3] https://vector.dev
I've gotten about 3 responses when posting to the who is looking post.
It can really vary, and depends on what you are looking for, what tools/tech you have experience in and experience.
Emailed the hiring email address in the thread for a company that seemed to suit my interests and abilities at the time and was off to the races. I moved from a rural area to a Midwestern state for the gig. Every job I've had since that job has been with companies comprised of permutations of those same coworkers from the first gig.
I'd probably still be doing roofing or something if I hadn't been an HN reader at that time.
I know there are cities in the midwest but I chuckled at this description.
Aside, I am all for suitably difficult challenges, and I distinguish engineer from developer. Dev shouldn’t get CS stuff, Eng should. Mention it to benefit other hiring managers who may be reading, if it rings fair.
Once at Singly, in 2010-ish. Was a contractor for about 4 months, they brought me on full time, and I spent about a year there, left to go to one of the big 4 consulting companies, spent 7 years there.
The second was at Greenhouse (the ATS) in 2021 -- was there until Jan of this year.
I've also now hired several excellent engineers through the same means (not at Twitter).
"Who's Hiring" threads are amazing.
Not the ads, but the Who’s hiring posts.
No regrets. I just found a new job, same way.
I talked my company into posting a HN post. All messages that recruiting didn't filter went to me. There was an obvious difference between those responses and other posts. Not necessarily better, just different.
One woman I hired reminded me a while later that she had originally "applied" via the who's hiring thread. I missed it at first but it made sense.
If it weren't for that CTO I'd likely still be working there.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
3: responded to the who is hiring post
1: contacted me based on a comment I made on an unrelated thread
2: from who wants to be hired that I reached out to
In total I reached out to about 30 people from “who wants to be hired”, I heard back from 19 of them, 9 of them went on to interview (the others had already found jobs, I went back a few months looking - at least 1 of my hires had only posted 4 months ago), and I hired 2 of them.
Across all sources I interviewed 30 people (between 1-4 interviews depending on how far they got, around 70 interviews total) and hired 6.
I’m not sure if you think that proves or disproves your point, just wanted to provide the data.
I was working on my first "startup" (if you want to call it that) and wasn't getting traction. The owner of a software consulting firm found me on Hacker News and brought me in as his first employee on a massive contract. We grew the team substantially, made great money and that lead to doing a real startup after. And then another. All from a post I made on a hiring thread.
My thinking is because this year I'm 40 years old and ATS software now marks me as a dinosaur.
The market is also far far worse right now than it was 3 years ago
I'm still with the posted position: I really like the company and the people I work with. It's certainly one of the better jobs I've had in my career.
In my 2020 job search, I gravitated towards "Who's Hiring" for a few reasons: I interacted directly with hiring managers, and I prefer early-stage companies. The concise nature of posts makes it easy to flag the ones I want to pursue. The fact that it's once a month means I know that someone is actively hiring.
In contrast, I don't like working with non-technical "middlemen" recruiters, I don't like FAANG-style hiring, long job postings make it hard to narrow down which ones I want to pursue, and I'm always afraid that I'm applying to a job posting that's "for show" and I'm just wasting my time. (IE, some managers always try to keep a few open positions as a way of working large company politics without seriously intending on filling those positions.)
For background the hire before that was through a colleague and the job I got before that was through a news list. I don't really ever get any success through more traditional job seeking services.
By the way, here's a thread with the same question form last year (June 2023): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36160198
generally, the company was looking for a very unique form of talent driven by a certain attitude and experience. they developed tools for verifying and filtering for it. if you've read any william gibson novels the firm would fit right into something he would describe.
if I were to characterize it, I'd say someone who has been any one of a FOSS contributor, bootstrapped founder, hacker, competitor especially elite level or minor fame in anything, autodidact, amateurist, performing artist, among other high competence bars that demonstrate tacit knowledge, focus, clarity, humility, reflexive curiosity, and related qualities, then imagine a firm that had somehow managed to quietly collect scores of them.
HN seems to attract a cluster of those people.
For what was a two sentence post I made thinking it wouldn’t really amount to anything, it turned out to be one of the best moves I’ve made. (For both parties, I’d say.)
I'm super happy about the practice overall and I hope it continues!
Neither was a startup though.
In addition to that, I’ve received 3-4 requests via email to Interview for a position given things I’ve talked about on HN (various technologies/frameworks/libraries/etc).
A friend of mine found a job in a startup through HN.
I had around 10 interviews via HN jobs, and around 50ish through the startup match making thing.
7/10 job interviews were fake jobs that actually didn't exist and where there's not even a budget available for them. These jobs were abused as early customer feedback and I didn't believe what happened there. I was basically braindumped.
The interviews from the startup matchmaking site were also kind of ridiculous. More bullshit consultants there than actual founders or actual developers that could or want to be building anything. These consultants want to hire you as a cheap developer, not as a founder, and definitely not as a shareholder. Happened so many times that I am not using this site for anything startup related anymore.
In general I'd argue that HN has a huge vetting problem, and by vetting I mean whether or not the intent of the people attending there come with honest intentions as to both their experience (which pretty much is almost always totally made up if you discuss more technical problems) and the idea of putting a lot of work into a problem to solve it (a _lot_ of people think that having a startup gig on the weekend, but only afternoons, leads to anything successful).
Most people come with so high expectations that it feels like being inside a ponzi community. Startups are a percentage game of luck, and you can only get an advantage if you have the right team at the right time, which implies that teams have to be absurdly motivated by a problem.
The people I found on this site are the opposite of that. They see it as a way to make quick cash because "they heard this is how to get rich fast".
I was very disappointed and am now much more involved in our local startup related meetups and events, and found a lot of team members through that.
(Just in case there was a misunderstanding)
Stayed with the company for a couple of years.
Thankful for the Co-founders and HN
The Who's Hiring post was actually posted by an employee seeking a referral bonus. Overall a good experience.
Both times I saw job openings that greatly matched my experience (although very different one from the other), got in touch and got it working.
I found the experience was great, in both cases
Who's Hiring hit-rate is much better than my LinkedIn hit-rate :D
Perhaps the "Who wants to be hired" recurring submission is similarly bogus.
Free information gathering at the expense of gulllible computer users, here, "developers". Another page from the SillyCon Valley playbook.
It's easy to get rich quick in business when you're dishonest for a short time, but it's slightly more difficult to be honest, trustworthy, and not a pathological liar. Karma, reputation, and the law eventually catch up with shady people who didn't learn anything about the social contract from their parents.
This is comforting to believe but I'm not sure reality aligns with that.
https://www.howtogeek.com/297651/what-does-it-mean-when-a-co...
This hasn't completely discouraged me from being hired through HN in similar situations, but I will definitely do more research on the company beforehand.
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