[lawnchair_larry]

Personally I think those terms indicate feeble attempts at psychological manipulation. I feel like responding to job ads like that would be like admitting you're a gullible fool. They're trying to recruit and stroke egos, not people.

[huhtenberg]

Or they think of themselves as ninjas, which is too a big red flag.

[bestes]

I dunno. Think about Steve Jobs recruiting for Mac engineers with a pirate flag flying from the building. If 'pirate' then == ninja/rockstar now, you might be missing a great job.

[r00fus]

Was that part of Steve's recruiting schtick? IIRC, that was just internal company culture and not something that Apple HR (or Steve if he was interviewing) would have mentioned.

I do believe he used words like "changing the world", etc. These are more about results than ego. Huge difference.

[novalis]

You are on to something here. If people want o make it a hipster contest don't use the recruiting op and waste it. It simply does not add up unless you are stuck in a mindset that is not conductive to anything productive. Nihilists are us should never be a place one "wants" to work at unless there are no other ops available.