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Comment by alexwolfe | Hacker News Reader

I don't think what they are saying is arrogant but it is not very professional.

They offer no name and a graph that you are supposed to take on good faith. In return they expect you to write them (what most would) a cover letter, including probably a resume, and a project you've built in rails that you are proud of.

This is a tremendous amount of information and a effort to expect when they have given very little. By contrast they cannot provide a company name, a legitimate email address, or information on who is running the company.

Granted the graph may be impressive but what about the company culture, location, work space, size, etc? Those seem like more important things to talk about for someone planning to commit the next year or two of their lives to a job.

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Maybe they're in stealth. That limits how much of the kimono they're willing to open. Or maybe they're in the open but they want to brag about the traffic graph without having to spoil some press they're saving for later. (Though anyone who pays even a little attention around here would probably find it easy to suss out who these guys are. I have a good hunch.)

I don't think it would be out of line to offer an equally pithy summary of one's work experience, along with a resume, and let the conversation go from there. They're signaling that they're not stuffy suits – I don't think the expectation is for an applicant to respond to the ad like they would a job at IBM.

As to professionalism, eh, screw it. I'm exhausted with corporate bullshit and I know I hate when scrappy companies try to emulate it. They're "keeping it real," as the kids say, and that's a lot more pleasant to me than the stiff, stuffy, dull alternatives.

Actually I don't know if they are keeping it real, you don't know unless you meet them. I'm not a fan of stuffy corporate bs either, I've never met anyone who loves that.

I think being thoughtful, informative, and respectful doesn't have anything to do with corporate bs. I've worked at many companies with great cultures that don't need to write questionable job postings to keep it real.

Being professional and being stuffy are two very different things. I know a whole industry of professionals I'd love to work with or have a beer with anytime.

Yeah, seriously. You don't have to use cool-speak to keep it real. It doesn't matter how big or small you are, sincerity always shines through.

As to the original comment, I think this may swing either way. This could either be the real deal, hot tech startup or it could be some assholes who are totally overcompensating with all the secrecy and trying to play it super hipster. I see where you might get arrogance from it. I didn't think of that first though. Considering we're on HN here and since the site has an outstanding reputation for keeping most riff raff out, I just assumed it was a hot-next-big-thing startup looking for employees.

It'd be interesting to respond to the ad with an entirely anonymous resume and portfolio from some one-off email address. See if you get a response/request for more information.

I don't see the problem with that. Any job seeker should have an updated CV at hand, and he'd better have some Rail project to show off if he is a Rail developper, so dropping a standard "Hi, please find my cv enclosed, here is something I built..." is not a great deal for someone looking for a job.

It's pretty common not to identify the company, companies don't want to reveal their funding or their growth until they're ready to use it for PR.

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