[aaronbrethorst]

How is "your software makes money" not an "unusual skill"?

Plus, I care. If the business I'm applying to for a job doesn't care, it'll probably reduce my interest in them.

Let me give you a strawman scenario: I walk into an interview at a startup that just landed its Series A round. I'm interviewing for a position as the chief products guy or the CTO or something. The interviewer across the table from me says "You spent a paragraph of your resume talking about the business you built from scratch into a $200k/year revenue source. That's not very interesting; let's talk about this cool IOCCC entry of yours from last year, instead."

I'm going to assume that the interviewer (likely the founder or a co-founder) is probably an idiot for dismissing a significant accomplishment of mine and focusing instead on something that is—relatively speaking—quite trivial, and that his priorities are totally off. My bozo bit's been flipped, and there's not a chance I'm going to want to work with this guy. He's going to spend the next 18 months burning KPCB's million-plus stake on architecture astronaut'ish goals that have nothing to do with solving real problems and making real money. I'm going to shake his hand, say 'no thanks,' walk out the door, and go have a pint. (bear in mind, this is a strawman).

Please note that I'm not a Perl guy, so I can't speak for you or Ingy dot Net or Larry Wall. I'm a 'business guy' who happens to have a Computer Science degree and writes his own code.

[jrockway]

Sure, but startups are an unusual case. Very few programming jobs are for startups. Most are for established companies that already have the business side down; where you are going to be too far away from "the business" for your experience to have any use. They need programmers that can add features in such a way as to avoid needing 50 new QA testers and overnight support staff. "Architechture astronautics" are fine; the company has plenty of time and money to invest into better solutions than whatever would put out the fire right now.

I've worked at small and large companies, and this has always been the case. The business was already well-established and does not really need help from the programming team. The programmers just need to craft extensible and clean solutions that solve the current problems and the anticipated future problems.

Startup experience wouldn't count against you, but neither would being able to run a marathon. The reality is that neither skill will be particularly useful. Being able to prove that you've written software, however, is a useful skill.

(People on HN seem to think that "good software" == "software that makes money", but that's not necessarily true. Good software products made money because of good marketing, good customer support, and general good business skills. The actual code quality varies. Ever use Windows? Yeah.)

Also remember that the OP is applying for a "junior developer" position, and I am answering with respect to that. CTO is very different from "junior developer".

[aaronbrethorst]

Posting a question to Ask HN suggests a predisposition towards startups.

I've worked at small and large companies as well, and I've always been well-rewarded in job interviews and in the positions themselves for exactly what I'm describing. It's good to hear that two very different people can succeed in this business, just don't try to call BS on what I've found to actually work. I'll agree to refrain from the same.

[jrockway]

Posting a question to Ask HN suggests a predisposition towards startups.

Why? I am a pretty well-known contributer to HN, and I have approximately 0 interest in startups. Since the word "startup" was never mentioned by the OP, I have no reason to assume he is interested.