Hey, Hipster – "Ninja" Isn’t Cool: What Developers Really Want to Be Called Is…

My general impression is that whenever someone uses a title like "ninja" is that the company is either a super large, largely clueless enterprise which is unwilling to pay market rates or a super small, largely clueless start-up which is unable to pay market rates.

I'm a professional. I don't need silly job titles, or gold stars on my report card. I need my employer to pay market rate, trust my judgement and allow me to do what I do better than they do (which is what they are paying me for).

It depends on which kind of personality you want to attract. The immature state of an early stage startup could be seen as attractive.

By the way, there is no point in trying to be cool using the same terms 'ninja' and 'rockstar' over and over. HR, where is your creativity?

That first graph is terrible. Making hate and love similar shades of purple.

I'm not even gonna pain my head to understand what the colored bands mean.

I'd be just as turned off by a job posting for a "ninja" as I would be by a blog post addressing a "hipster." Why favor one buzzword over another?