Those were the developers represented in our first auction, but we're definitely not going to be turning away senior talent in the future just because they work at Amazon, LinkedIn, Etsy or Gilt Groupe.
What are you trying to say about the engineers at those companies?
What a bunch of navel gazing, elitist douchebags you are. Do you think actually think working a Zynga or Facebook makes you a good dev. Get a grip. In any sufficiently large set of individuals you will have everything from poseur to star. Facebook, Zynga and others are not immnune to this like you would have us believe.
I was around during the previous tech bubble. Paid my dues in the trenches and earned my stripes. The last startup I was at I was a team lead. It is still around and growing but I guess since I didn't go a fancy school I don't exist. That's ok, keep promoting the hiring of greenhorns who think everything they dream up is new and then proceed to reinvent the wheel. Education does not make you smart, just educated.
BTW: In case your wondering. I'm happily employed making 6 figures for less hours than your screened employers would expect.
Epic. Fail.
(Note: I have neither a CS degree (or even a high school diploma) nor have I worked for any of the companies mentioned.)
No. They are catering to a group of people who specifically care about pedigree. They are trying to replace the role of the recruiters who do the same thing.
The recruiters actively sell the idea that pedigree matters.
I would have partnered with a company that already had peoples' code and some experience using it to find who the good coders are. My recruiting experiences with coding-test sites were not very positive (as with dating, the sites were fine, it's the needle-haystack problem because there were few good ones and they got lots of attention) but Kaggle (which focuses on data science) might have greener pastures.