Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by IvyMike 4207 days ago
Postings that use phrases like "ninja", "rockstar", "crush code", etc, tell me something very, very important about the company.

Specifically, that I'd probably hate to work there.

4 comments

We had a lot of fun with a recent hiring effort here. Our ad headline was "We do not want ninjas or rock stars, just good programmers." It seemed to resonate with our target audience more than a generic headline.
"ninja" and "rockstar" seem to have faded in popularity. Now one is expected to be "passionate".

I like to stay awake for days on end, writing. I mean like essays, articles and stories.

Sometimes I even write poetry!

"But we have bean bag chairs!"
I just looked at the Jobs page on the site of an actual employer - not a job board post - where they had photos of them all getting drunk.

I have had some experiences with alcoholics I do not wish to repeat.

A recent employer was a raging alcoholic, I mean to the point that there were hundreds of beer bottles in the recycling bin, one-liter bottles of expensive hard liquor presented on display in the break room. The only room in the whole office that wasn't totally trashed, held a pool table that no one ever actually used, that had several of the kinds of mirrors that liquor distributors give to bars.

I didn't clue in to this right away. However the guy bet the farm on a technology without looking into whether that technology actually worked. When I had not gotten it working after just two hours, he started raging at me about how it was all my fault that it didn't work. This for a technology I'd never heard of, and would not touch with a hot rock now that I have experience with it.

I finally packed up my stuff, broadcast a terse, angry letter of resignation to the entire company, to the effect that I don't work for alcoholics, then walked out with no advance notice at all.

> the guy bet the farm on a technology without looking into whether that technology actually worked.

> When I had not gotten it working after just two hours, he started raging at me about how it was all my fault that it didn't work.

This is how most mid-sized non-technology companies operate when it comes to making technical decisions. If you have a couple of months to spare (the guy is verbose), I recommend reading the Gervais Principle[0].

[0] http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/