He writes well, but is only 2 years out of college (Stanford '13). Learning that (and noticing how he obfuscated it on his LinkedIn) made me take this piece with an even larger grain of salt than I would normally have.

You'd be surprised with how many lessons you can take away from even a short period of taking a new position.

For instance I had done very limited management in my past. When a new project came up the company I worked at they had made me lead the project which essentially meant developer + manager. This employer also had the habit of under staffing teams while pushing very aggressive timelines. This lead me to try to manage a team of 6 while also coding around the clock for several months. When it came to review time I was a mess; I hadn't paid enough attention to my team, I was constantly scrambling for tasks, trying to find ways to help where necessary, etc. It was an incredible trial-by-fire.

When it came to my second stint at the same position for a new project I was ready. I gave constant feedback in real-time, I was able to keep on top of tasks, my meetings were more streamlined and I was able to estimate things far better; I did a 180 and became much more effective.

It's also interesting to note that the company itself has grown from 13-55 people within that year. You'd imagine they'd have someone with a bit more experience managing the team (unless it's a team where the median age is, say, 23). Inexperienced managers are a bigger risk than inexperienced devs, and if I were at Imagur, I'd be wary of (and maybe also unmotivated by) a young manager trying to prove a point (or feature on the front page of HN).

Maybe he was a quick study?