Startup offers trip as hiring bonus | Hacker News Reader

Startup offers trip as hiring bonus

code.craftcoffee.com

82 pointsmikenyc55 comments

Thank god there's a picture of a fat dude on the page. Had it been a picture of a hot girl in a bikini and we'd hear drama about this for a week.

We have some women on the team at Craft Coffee, and let's just say that you are correct, sir.

Smart man.

Nobody ever got fired for making fun of slightly overweight white men.

There is already drama, apparently they only address this to guys. How about "Grab your bikini"?

I thought of this, but I think it's OK in the context of the joke. (And technically, Speedo might stereotypically be associated with men, but they make stuff for women too.)

I sure hope at least one of you is being sarcastic.

wouldn't be so sure..

No, I don't think so. There's a tendency in tech circles to act like programmers etc. are just men. It's not malicious but it makes women feel invisible, which is a factor in the gender imbalance in tech. So as part of the effort to get more women into tech, we're self-conscious about thoughtless (not generally malicious) actions that make women feel less welcome. I would definitely consider a serious headline saying "grab your speedo, we're sending you to Brazil" as unintentionally making women feel forgotten. But again, since it's a just a joke about a photo, it's not really a problem in this case.

For the record, we're happy to talk to women developers. And it was women who designed and wrote the copy for the site.

That picture is from the Romanian seaside (Romanian gypsies), I have a different angle here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/913zazhaca3i965/lamare.jpg

Wow. You know, we saw him and we fell in love. You gotta go with your heart on these things.

Well in case you ever get bored of that one, now you have the option to swap.

Does the job come with that sweet bling cross ?

Subject to negotiation! But we're willing to discuss. :)

I'm from Brazil and a ruby developer. Can I exchange the trip for a visa?

Yes. Seriously. If we decide to hire somebody from outside the US who wants to move to NYC, we will sponsor a visa. You should apply.

Cool. I guess I'm going to have to give it a shot.

Cool idea: I'm curious why you need a talented developer though. Shouldn't shopify be good enough for you?

Can't do subscription billing on shopify

Nope, we reject your premise. Check out slide 2.

More importantly: what sort of beans do you keep stocked in the office?

We have an endless supply of the best coffee available on the planet. We receive between 50 to 100 samples every month. We work with NYC's top baristas to do blind tastings of every sample we receive and we keep detailed sensory records (awesome db of data on coffee evaluations, btw!).

After all that, only the top 3 coffees from that process make it into our boxes. And, we partner with General Assembly to provide those same 3 coffees as our office coffee.

So it's coffee heaven.

Neat.

Worked with a coffee fiend at my first job that put the "every office needs a good espresso machine" idea in my head.

I've never quite executed that idea because I figure a clueless coworker would not clean it, burn themselves, or worse (flavoured supermarket beans - eurgh!).

Working somewhere with a constant supply of good coffee would be amazing.

I don't disagree, but I would honestly worry. I love coffee, and one of the best days in recent memory is when a local micro-roaster opened up shop in the Crownsville area (Bean Rush Cafe, fantastic coffee if you're local to it) -- but y'know, sometimes I like cream or sugar in my coffee, and I could very easily see myself being judged for that in the same way I judge people who put soda in their whiskey.

And I'd hate to end up being the coffee-pansy. :'(

I can vouch for the fact that they have the best of the best. It's a wonderland of unlimited gourmet beans.

Great job with the posting. Very creative!

Thanks!

I'm sad you guys are in New York and not Boston, I love me some good coffee! beautiful website too

Let's talk! Boston is not so far away. Shoot me an email. code@craftcoffee.com

It's cute guys, I give you points for creativity. But as Rails consultant in San Francisco for many years and recent startup founder myself, I must say that the icon about $2500 for the hardware of your choice kind of backfires and I've advised my clients against using such incentives. On the one hand the new Mac Book with the retina display fully loaded runs about that in minimum configuration by itself. So no budget for an external Thunderbolt display? But more disconcertingly is the subtext which says, buy and set yourself up however you want, without regard to what makes for the lowest friction team, pairing and collaboration experience. In a way this is the cubicle of the 21st century. This is why shops like Pivotallabs don't give their employees individual machines, all they have is a room full of pairing stations, because they realize that ease of cooperation is far more important than personal preferences and customization.

Point taken. But in our case, we're bringing on our first lead engineer. This person will create our engineering culture and be the one who decides how these processes will play out. So the opportunity here is to shape our engineering team, including how developers will work together.

Ok, so the $2500 is the budget for the developer's machine. A more important question is: who owns the machine, the developer or the company?

If it is the former, I see no reason to complain.

I've yet to see a startup or any company for that matter that signs over ownership of assets bought with company funds to rank and file employees.

How about saying just that then? If you want the person to create a culture, then giving them a $2.5k budget sends the wrong message there too, as to how much leeway they have. I don't think this will attract the right kind of candidate. Just my $.02

While I disagree with the tone and tenor of wolframarnold on most of it, I do agree that the amount is a little low. I personally think it should be at least $4500 or so, but I could get by with $3500 if I needed to, but then you'd be on the hook to pick up software afterward (Photoshop isn't cheap, etc.)

Also, outworlder's point is germane. The term "tech stipend" leads me to believe that you're going to give me $2500 to pick up my own stuff, that I would then own. If that's the case, it changes the equation a little better, because I already personally own three larger monitors that I'd be happy to drag to the office if that was the expectation.

Regardless, I thought the job posting was MUCH better than 'cute'. I think I've officially ruled out working in NYC, but this offer is tempting, if only for the coffee. Still though, it's very tempting. If the platform choice weren't Ruby, I'd be all over it.

Great stuff, always hard to find good people and Im sure this will bring in lots of nice applicants. And a little trip to Brazil would indeed be nice. Good luck!

Thanks. Appreciate the feedback!

I would apply if I had any skills in Ruby, but alas, I've done mostly .Net / iOS development. That said, I absolutely love postings like this!

If you're interested, you should apply. If everything else is a great fit, I'm sure you can learn Ruby/Rails if that's something you're interested in doing.

Very nicely done! One minor nit: clicking on '5' on the top scrolls to '4' ;).

(Edit: obviously, it is slide 5, but still ;).)

Thanks for the feedback. It depends on your browser size. On very large screens it gets a little funky. We talked about it, but ended up deciding to not sweat the edge cases.

Now I know I'm not the only Ruby developer in the coffee industry!

Happy to share notes if you ever want to talk. My email is in my hacker news profile. Feel free to connect.

Nice misuse of the term 'low level developers' Craft Coffee...

Just curious to hear opinions: How competitive is $50–100k in NYC?

The 0.5–10% does seem potentially generous.

[http://angel.co/craftcoffee#recruiting]

Thanks for the question, anon user who created an account 3 minutes ago.

You can't realistically boil these things down in a web form text input. So we put a wide range for both salary AND equity to indiciate optionality on the part of the person we end up hiring.

More people need to recruit like this!

Thanks! Appreciate the kind words.

what i can't figure out and want to know is: is stumptown still good or have they turned evil?

Plato said ...

Just kidding. I don't know. They're probably cool.

They're still all the rage out here in Brooklyn, so I assume they're still fighting the good fight.

Not evil, as far as I know. They have some great single origins, but I'm less excited about their blends.

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