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Comment by tolmasky | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only one who doesn't find these things cute?

Don't worry, you're far from alone. I sympathize with their desire to stand out from the other job ads, but this one is just silly. It gives the impression of a place, as Zed Shaw says, that identifies more with Rails than with their business.

It got them to the front page of Hacker News -- a "normal" ad would not have. I'm guessing that there are at least some of us that would look past (or not mind) the ad if the job looked good.

All that and they don't bother to mention salary. Seriously, they want someone "super-smart, motivated", blah, blah. They want to suck you dry so millions of women can shop better and for what in return? To piss away your super-smart, highly motivated existence programming Rails? Vision care? yeah, they do apparently have a health policy that through no fault of their own, you can't keep after they suck you dry. So what can you keep? Well, I'm sure the stock option contract is 20 pages of pure "screw you". If it wasn't, why not publish the options contract? They drop the hint several times that this may be a good job for a perv that wants to collect data on millions of women!! What genius thought dropping the "women, hint, hint!" line several times was a good idea.

No, the only thing you walk away from most any job with is $$$cash$$$....they leave that part out!!!

The ad is well written. And cute. But here's my message to companies: Tell us HOW MUCH!!!

wow, I sure woke up on the crabby side of the bed, today ;).

Just include a salary expectation with your resume and cover letter. Then if they follow up, you know they're willing to negotiate around that number. That's not so hard, right? Everyone knows if you're not a founder, you aren't getting stock that's worth working for peanuts.

"Everyone knows if you're not a founder, you aren't getting stock that's worth working for peanuts."

Which is precisely why parading it as a perk makes the ad bad. A great startup should publish their stock option agreements. Let people see how great it is. "psst, I'm gonna show this secret agreement, don't tell anyone else what it says..."

After all this time of so many thousands of startups, we've finally gotten to a point of having a library of startup contracts, investment contracts, etc... You should be able to say "We use Law Firm X's published stock agreement. Its well vetted and easy to understand."

If you want to attract great talent, show them the money!!!

Transparency Rules!!!

Yeah, this turns me right off too. Largely because I wouldn't want to work with people who found this kind of thing cute.

A job ad with well-written English is much more impressive.

Makes me think they have too much free time.

They're trying to be clever and witty. It is starting to look like they're trying too hard. Phrases like "Uber-Productive" and "Super-smart" make it worse.

At least they should use proper Umlaute.

I like their puzzle at the bottom and the subsequent page. I for one really like pomegranates.

I wonder how many cover letters they will get with that in them. Fun puzzle, but does it really help selection?

Agreed. If I were looking for a job and saw this, I'd skip over it without a second thought.

I'm wondering if that was inspired by the #songsincode meme on Twitter a short while back.

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