Ask HN: Who's been hired through Hacker News?
Please comment here if you've ever gotten hired through HN and what your experience was like.
I flew for a living for a long time and was verbally harassed at many jobs by a superior. I remember talking on the radio once during a checkride - “do you have shit in your mouth? Because you sound like it.”
He was just being an asshole to rile me up, but it remains an asshole thing to say, and you have to deal with it because he literally holds your career in his hands. Personally, in that moment I vowed I’d never do that to anyone - but it doesn’t mean it isn’t widespread and it doesn’t mean quitting was an option.
Other times in my career I was expressedly told violate regulations or do legal but wildly unsafe things; because I had massive student loan debt at the time (I paid all that shit off eventually greatest feeling in the world), rent to pay, I had to make a lot of compromises I’m not proud of retrospectively because I did not want to be homeless or laid off looking for a flying job in 2009.
To act as though everyone can quit if their ego gets bruised by some jackass is the height of privilege. Many many other careers do not have that option. Not saying it is right in the least, but I feel a lot of people would really benefit from an understanding that how principled a person can be often practically changed by exterior circumstances.
That’s the thing I want people to take away from all this - a sort of “dialectical materialism” sort of view - that being able to quit without worse consequences than a bruised ego is unto itself a sort of prosperity many many people do not have.
The issue isn't that these jobs pay well and are great to work in so we should deal with any bs that flys. It's that people don't deserve to be harrassed, regardless of how "good" their work is.
If you make 2 million a year as an investment banker, you don't deserve to be unfairly humiliated at your job more than any part time fast food worker.
They neither stated nor suggested that.
Beyond that, there is a certain frailty to all this stuff too, nobody deserves to be treated poorly, but the inability to bounce back from that is not great either
This is the same argument over and over that IT has it too good and maybe when there are layoffs or abuse scandals, some people rejoice in knowing they too are suffering like others. Like it's deserved.
Not saying I agree with it, nor am I saying it should remain this way? But having the fortitude to tough out some shit is a valuable skill. Not saying that OP doesn’t, but also, a lot of people don’t.
Reading this already sets me off. Why the FUCK do people have uninstigated belligerence at work and to the general at large? What is their problem?
Why can't a simple, "Can you speak louder? I can't hear you." suffice? I'm so sick of people not having basic decency. This kind of person needs to fuck off.
Regardless, this sort of thing is not uncommon - it’s not right, but learning how to survive and withstand things that aren’t right so you can accomplish the things you want to accomplish is valuable. I actually - naively, thought academia would be different after a decade in aviation, hilariously academia was far more asshole-ish as a matter of percentage.
I had a very good advisor and instructors so I was spared most of the obnoxiousness, but I did see some sociopathic behavior. It’s life - between 10 and 20 percent of people are going to fucking suck.
I’m doing some contract work on the side. Every day I’m like if this guy harasses me again I’m going to put my notice in go work for less money but unfortunately I’m not even sure what decision should I take since the job is high paying but on the hand the contract work is with the startup and pays less money compared to what I make
I wish economy was better so I could leave my toxic job.
Some managers are really pain in the ass
I like that you curated your search, hiring would be in such a better place if everyone did that. Anymore, every single opening gets spammed thousands of resumes with absolutely no skill or history relevant to the company. Makes it harder for the hiring side and people like yourself.
2021. Different time, different hiring attitudes. A shame 2024 is no longer an employee's market.
How is that life anyways? I know very little about it?
I posted here again in late 2019 and a recruiter asked me if I wanted to move to Europe for work. Not seeing any future back home, I gambled and said yes. Interviewed with the company for a few months and eventually moved to EU in late 2020 and been here since then. I never got to thank the recruiter in person as he had already left by the time I started at the new job. His one email in Oct 2019 was something that dramatically changed the trajectory of my life. Hi J, if you're reading this! :)
I've been posting on Who is Hiring threads again in the last few months but the situation has changed drastically now. I need a work permit to stay here and not many companies (at least on HN) are offering that. I guess it's time to pack my bags and move again to places unknown.
I've never really fit anywhere, so moving to a new country wasn't a big deal, just a change of scenery and weather. Given a chance I'd probably move even more up north where it's colder.
I do immensely appreciate the increased quality of life -- 24x7 clean water and electricity, comfortable and (almost) punctual public transport, fair wages, focus on having a life outside work; and an escape from a society which strictly adheres to traditional norms.
> In what country are you living now
I'd rather not mention it out loud, since this account already contains some other identifiable info. I hope you understand.
You're going to get an overwhelming number of "yup, worked for me in 2XXX" responses. I'm not sure what the point of the question is, though.
The job market for us is very different now than even a handful of years ago, so any results won't be representative of now. And asking only for survivors won't tell you how successful the postings really were to either side, just that eventually the job was filled from here and not another source.
Turns out I love writing code and don't care much for computer science. I've been a software engineer (NOT a computer scientist) ever since.
Thank you to Mek, Stephen, and Matt for taking a chance on me.
That was a piece of advice I wish I had when I was in high school. It wasn't until halfway though college that I understood the difference. It was abundantly obvious that the vast majority of CS students should have been in a "Software Engineering" program, too.
Perhaps you are right, but I am thankful for my CS background despite being a SWE myself.
Understand that I am also close to the intelligence level of crayon-eating compared to most on this site. I felt like my unspectacular public state university level CS degree wouldn't even hold a candle to some of the people's education in this very thread like the one commenter who studied at MIT.
However, I still believe what I learned was extremely valuable. In fact, I am sadden by my level of understanding and I wish I knew more CS. Just because I do not apply pure CS every single day does not mean that my decisions are not influenced by what I learned. At worst, my knowledge has never been a hindrance.I refuse to believe that knowledge can ever be useless. Not applicable != useless.
Genuine question though, what would a software engineering program provide that a computer science student would struggle to understand?
One reason I also wish I'd gone along an SE track is that it would likely have given me a lot more experience actually doing what I do for work. Using version control, working with others in a group setting, actually making software.
aye, this. in my experience hard part isn't doing the actual coding bits, it's ironing out the Requirements, stuffing them into JIRA, building the Interface document to cover what we're coding, writing documentation, and making sure the new guy doesn't break the version control.
Coding the specification isn't hard once we have them. A lot of that is outsourced in my org, esp. fluff related to a few areas like UX. But the hard part is getting there, and the engineering processes and mentality to do so.
Sadly something I only recently allowed myself to understand is that I really don't have passion for networking, I absolutely love coding and creating new integrations, interfaces and backend, I did a lot of it to patch holes in the company i worked for and streamline my own and others work.
I'm a remote contractor for that same company now still doing the networking and some dev work for them but really want to get out and find a company that I can focus more on the DevOps side.
I’m not certain, but I think most SE programs are largely CS programs
On the flip side, I can think of three people who were hired via "who's hiring?" posts I put up.
I generally prefer YC companies and early stage startups, so it's generally been good for me.
now companies are worried about that classification
Edit: Also, I do recommend the "startup match" system they run, I've been having good success with that this year, found my current role and a number of solid roles that were candidates for acceptance. Be forewarned, that there are many well-intentioned but unserious people on there, so you definitely have to do a ton of legwork. Don't judge a book by it's cover, some of the best roles were people who frankly seemed somewhat unhinged but ended up being really interesting and compelling.
One thing I learnt is to request HN username and review their post history, and consider suspicious the ones who claim not having one or not participating in HN discussions.
A longer comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39311784
They had a good "vibe" from their I want to get hired post.
Got them their first gig in the tech space. Now with me at another tech play.
This place is great for connecting, the signal is way above noise.
Back then, Zach[2] from Timber.io reached out to me since they had just recently launched a startup in the logging space. We had a good exchange, but didn't get to work together. (I was burned out from my job and wanted to go back to university to study computer science, and felt that accepting "yet another job" wouldn't give me the perspective and foundational knowledge I was looking for. So I proposed a ridiculous rate that they understandably declined.)
However, we kept in touch over the years and I had good memories from our conversations.
During my studies, I fell in love with Rust. When I finished my bachelor's degree in 2020, I was looking for jobs in Rust that were specifically not in the blockchain/crypto currency industry (disqualifying at least 90% of the postings I had seen). Then Vector[3] caught my eye – a project by Timber.io. So I reached out to Zach again, and even though I had been fairly inexperienced in Rust, they took a shot on me. Eventually, Timber.io got bought by Datadog in 2021, and I sticked around until the end of 2022. After that, I was fully focused on finishing my master's degree.
To close the circle, I ended up founding a new company with Zach at the beginning of this year. We're still in stealth, but working on open source real-time video communication. If you're interested in tackling hard challenges in infrastructure/networking/native UI with Rust, please feel free to reach out – we have some open positions and I would love to reach for the same community that has once so openly accepted me.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12830763
[2] https://zach.sh
I've gotten about 3 responses when posting to the who is looking post.
It can really vary, and depends on what you are looking for, what tools/tech you have experience in and experience.
Emailed the hiring email address in the thread for a company that seemed to suit my interests and abilities at the time and was off to the races. I moved from a rural area to a Midwestern state for the gig. Every job I've had since that job has been with companies comprised of permutations of those same coworkers from the first gig.
I'd probably still be doing roofing or something if I hadn't been an HN reader at that time.
I know there are cities in the midwest but I chuckled at this description.
Aside, I am all for suitably difficult challenges, and I distinguish engineer from developer. Dev shouldn’t get CS stuff, Eng should. Mention it to benefit other hiring managers who may be reading, if it rings fair.
Once at Singly, in 2010-ish. Was a contractor for about 4 months, they brought me on full time, and I spent about a year there, left to go to one of the big 4 consulting companies, spent 7 years there.
The second was at Greenhouse (the ATS) in 2021 -- was there until Jan of this year.
I've also now hired several excellent engineers through the same means (not at Twitter).
"Who's Hiring" threads are amazing.
Not the ads, but the Who’s hiring posts.
No regrets. I just found a new job, same way.
I talked my company into posting a HN post. All messages that recruiting didn't filter went to me. There was an obvious difference between those responses and other posts. Not necessarily better, just different.
One woman I hired reminded me a while later that she had originally "applied" via the who's hiring thread. I missed it at first but it made sense.
If it weren't for that CTO I'd likely still be working there.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
3: responded to the who is hiring post
1: contacted me based on a comment I made on an unrelated thread
2: from who wants to be hired that I reached out to
In total I reached out to about 30 people from “who wants to be hired”, I heard back from 19 of them, 9 of them went on to interview (the others had already found jobs, I went back a few months looking - at least 1 of my hires had only posted 4 months ago), and I hired 2 of them.
Across all sources I interviewed 30 people (between 1-4 interviews depending on how far they got, around 70 interviews total) and hired 6.
I’m not sure if you think that proves or disproves your point, just wanted to provide the data.
I was working on my first "startup" (if you want to call it that) and wasn't getting traction. The owner of a software consulting firm found me on Hacker News and brought me in as his first employee on a massive contract. We grew the team substantially, made great money and that lead to doing a real startup after. And then another. All from a post I made on a hiring thread.
My thinking is because this year I'm 40 years old and ATS software now marks me as a dinosaur.
The market is also far far worse right now than it was 3 years ago
I'm still with the posted position: I really like the company and the people I work with. It's certainly one of the better jobs I've had in my career.
In my 2020 job search, I gravitated towards "Who's Hiring" for a few reasons: I interacted directly with hiring managers, and I prefer early-stage companies. The concise nature of posts makes it easy to flag the ones I want to pursue. The fact that it's once a month means I know that someone is actively hiring.
In contrast, I don't like working with non-technical "middlemen" recruiters, I don't like FAANG-style hiring, long job postings make it hard to narrow down which ones I want to pursue, and I'm always afraid that I'm applying to a job posting that's "for show" and I'm just wasting my time. (IE, some managers always try to keep a few open positions as a way of working large company politics without seriously intending on filling those positions.)
For background the hire before that was through a colleague and the job I got before that was through a news list. I don't really ever get any success through more traditional job seeking services.
By the way, here's a thread with the same question form last year (June 2023): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36160198
generally, the company was looking for a very unique form of talent driven by a certain attitude and experience. they developed tools for verifying and filtering for it. if you've read any william gibson novels the firm would fit right into something he would describe.
if I were to characterize it, I'd say someone who has been any one of a FOSS contributor, bootstrapped founder, hacker, competitor especially elite level or minor fame in anything, autodidact, amateurist, performing artist, among other high competence bars that demonstrate tacit knowledge, focus, clarity, humility, reflexive curiosity, and related qualities, then imagine a firm that had somehow managed to quietly collect scores of them.
HN seems to attract a cluster of those people.
For what was a two sentence post I made thinking it wouldn’t really amount to anything, it turned out to be one of the best moves I’ve made. (For both parties, I’d say.)
I'm super happy about the practice overall and I hope it continues!
Neither was a startup though.
In addition to that, I’ve received 3-4 requests via email to Interview for a position given things I’ve talked about on HN (various technologies/frameworks/libraries/etc).
A friend of mine found a job in a startup through HN.
I had around 10 interviews via HN jobs, and around 50ish through the startup match making thing.
7/10 job interviews were fake jobs that actually didn't exist and where there's not even a budget available for them. These jobs were abused as early customer feedback and I didn't believe what happened there. I was basically braindumped.
The interviews from the startup matchmaking site were also kind of ridiculous. More bullshit consultants there than actual founders or actual developers that could or want to be building anything. These consultants want to hire you as a cheap developer, not as a founder, and definitely not as a shareholder. Happened so many times that I am not using this site for anything startup related anymore.
In general I'd argue that HN has a huge vetting problem, and by vetting I mean whether or not the intent of the people attending there come with honest intentions as to both their experience (which pretty much is almost always totally made up if you discuss more technical problems) and the idea of putting a lot of work into a problem to solve it (a _lot_ of people think that having a startup gig on the weekend, but only afternoons, leads to anything successful).
Most people come with so high expectations that it feels like being inside a ponzi community. Startups are a percentage game of luck, and you can only get an advantage if you have the right team at the right time, which implies that teams have to be absurdly motivated by a problem.
The people I found on this site are the opposite of that. They see it as a way to make quick cash because "they heard this is how to get rich fast".
I was very disappointed and am now much more involved in our local startup related meetups and events, and found a lot of team members through that.
(Just in case there was a misunderstanding)
Stayed with the company for a couple of years.
Thankful for the Co-founders and HN
The Who's Hiring post was actually posted by an employee seeking a referral bonus. Overall a good experience.
Both times I saw job openings that greatly matched my experience (although very different one from the other), got in touch and got it working.
I found the experience was great, in both cases
Who's Hiring hit-rate is much better than my LinkedIn hit-rate :D
Perhaps the "Who wants to be hired" recurring submission is similarly bogus.
Free information gathering at the expense of gulllible computer users, here, "developers". Another page from the SillyCon Valley playbook.
It's easy to get rich quick in business when you're dishonest for a short time, but it's slightly more difficult to be honest, trustworthy, and not a pathological liar. Karma, reputation, and the law eventually catch up with shady people who didn't learn anything about the social contract from their parents.
This is comforting to believe but I'm not sure reality aligns with that.
https://www.howtogeek.com/297651/what-does-it-mean-when-a-co...
This hasn't completely discouraged me from being hired through HN in similar situations, but I will definitely do more research on the company beforehand.
This comment was rewritten by AI to anonymize the writing style.