Introducing the BankSimple Engineering Team
banksimple.net
banksimple.net
I would immediately move all my accounts to a bank that at least understood what the hell actual customer service looked like, even at a distance. (HINT: it's not a terminally chipper phone jockey who's missing their clue gland)
Your main programming guy is a lisper? You have a "Creative Director"? You are staffing up so quickly? You are bringing a pre-existing clique of people? Erlang? Clojure? Scala?
And with such a small team, you're spreading it out across 3 offices?
This team seems like a technical circle-jerk. You're making a BANK, not a programming language.
I'm sure that they will raise a lot of capital - but I really, really doubt that a real and credible business will come out this. These people understand technology, not banking or people. And the team build-out is reflecting this : it's all about technology and not about people or emotions.
Right, financial organizations should hire bunch of PHP script kiddies. I am sure that's working well for quant firms like Jane Street.
"You are staffing up so quickly?" vs. "such a small team"
I can't tell if you're trolling or just really inconsistent regarding the reasons for your dislike of them.
> it's all about technology and not about people or emotions.
Yes, hiring a designer definitely shows a complete disregard for the people using the product.
Oh wait...
Normally I wouldn't respond to a comment like this, but the value of Hacker News is in fostering discussions about the business of startups. You actually pose some interesting questions, and hopefully I can offer useful answers for people who might come across this thread.
First off, we're not a "SF startup"; we're a distributed team. My co-founders are in Brooklyn. I'm in Portland, along with two other employees. Our engineers are in SF, but quite frankly, they could decide to move to Siberia tomorrow and that'd be just fine.
If you read the blog that my co-founders have been contributing to over the last year, you'll find that they're very much "in love with the customer", and eager to explain how traditional banks have been doing those customers wrong. As was previously noted here on HN, they've been personally emailing anyone and everyone who signs up for more information about our service. The initial product we're launching is based on direct feedback resulting from thousands of those conversations with potential customers. We take their feedback very seriously.
Now, question-by-question:
1. Our Lead Engineer is not exclusively a Lisp programmer. He's worked in a variety of languages, including Common Lisp, Erlang, Ruby, and most recently, C#. I'm a big fan of "polyglot programming", and to me, Dave's ability to work in a variety of languages is, to my mind, an asset and a testament to his skill as a programmer.
2. Yes, we have a Creative Director. Our business involves much more than just a web presence, and we need much more than the average web designer. Banking is a complex economic and social interaction in which design plays a key role at every step. We chose someone not just with web, print, and identity work in his portfolio, but someone with deep industrial design experience. Bill earns the title of Creative Director through years of hard work, service to his industry peers, and a commitment to approaching the problem of designing a better banking experience holistically.
3. We're staffing up fairly conservatively when you consider our mission. This isn't just another build-it-in-a-weekend consumer web business. We're a fraction of the size of the web teams and/or IT teams at most banks.
4. Yes, we're hiring people who've worked effectively together. You'll find many posts from VCs and entrepreneurs about the value of "putting the band back together". I'm thrilled to have a team who are already in sync with one another.
5. Yes, Dave has worked in Erlang, and we're considering using technologies like Riak that are developed in Erlang. And yes, we plan to work in Scala and Clojure. I'm not sure why this is a question. They're great technologies. They work well. Lots of people are using them, including people in the financial services world who have run into the limitations of legacy technologies. Interesting technologies keep developers happy, motivated, and learning.
6. Yes, we're a distributed team. This should be nothing new in the tech world, particularly in the startup community. Being distributed allows us to work with talented people wherever they may be, keeps our costs down, and forces us to communicate clearly and explicitly amongst one another. It also lets us focus, and avoids the burdens and time-wasters of office water cooler culture.
I don't think you've taken the time to read about our backgrounds. If you had, you'd know that our CFO has spent years in the banking industry; that our CEO has helped managed a multi-billion dollar hedge fund and run an online marketplace for mortgages; that our Creative Director is an industry leader in UX and has focused specifically on issues of humane product and service design. I'm comfortable saying that our team has equal expertise in banking, "people", and technology.
Of course, part of our company's thesis is that a bank run like a tech startup will do better by its customers than a traditional bank or credit union. It seems like you disagree on that point, which is puzzling for this forum, given that so much of the Hacker News ethos is about making the world a better place through technically-minded entrepreneurship. So yes, we have a startup mentality, and people on our team are passionate about technology as well as about our product and customers. I see no need to apologize for that.
We do understand that the people are going to be hesitant to trust a new financial institution, as well they should be. The burden is on us to bridge that trust gap and, frankly, to prove people like you wrong. I'm confident that we will, and that we've picked the right team to do so.
Thanks for your questions, Max.
Here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1619384 you berate YC for just investing in 'features' and in this thread you berate a bunch of guys that are starting a bank.
Looking at the past experience of the team, and how many positions they've held with "software engineer" in the title, I'd say it's an insult to try to insinuate that they somehow aren't as capable at what they're doing as one with a degree that says they're an engineer.
Come on, let's be nice.
It's essentially a job requirement if you want to get into some types of engineering fields (electrical, mechanical, civil, etc.)
In the computer field, there's an extra step: Computer Scientist -> Software/Hardware Engineer -> Application Developer -> End User. The boundary b/t Engineer and Developer is sometimes vague, though.
TLDR - calling someone building an entire startup from scratch and 'Engineer' is perfectly accurate, since the level of software and hardware customization required will ensure they're doing alot more than just developing apps.
PS - not to belittle anyone's career, I fit squarely in the Developer category myself. As mentioned above, all are necessary pieces of the puzzle.
I also work as a software engineer. My title is not "computer programmer" (although I certainly program), professional programmers (e.g., "programmer/analyst" in an IT organization of a bank) typically encode domain-specific business requirements (e.g., "if the job code is 0123 add $0.75 to hourly rate") into internal applications. There's nothing wrong with that, it's a vital role and will soon be a part of most any white collar job.
I'm not a scientist. I don't build mathematical models and validate them experimentally (typically via simulation): it's an important and difficult job, but it's not what I do.
I build software systems by applying mathematical models to solve technical challenges. This is a lot closer to engineering than it is to science or programming in the traditional sense of the word. Of course, I also don't care: you could call me a "a computer janitor" and I would still love what I do.