Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda's Resume. Anyone interested?

by cmdrtaco • 15 years ago

376 154 15 years ago

blhack• 15 years ago

It might be worth adding:

"I'm Rob Malda. When you hire me, it's going to be the best advertising money you ever spend when every tech outlet in the world covers the story about where I am now working."

cmdrtaco14• 15 years ago

I'll get that into v2.0 ;)

pork2• 15 years ago

Rob, long-time /. fan who migrated over to HN when the signal-to-noise ratio exceeded my threshold. I just wanted to say thank you, and also that it's slightly ironic that you seem to be following the same path over to HN... :)

larrys2• 15 years ago

Linus Torvalds and Transmeta come to mind.

ronnier• 15 years ago

Amazon is hiring :D

ImprovedSilence• 15 years ago

Ever have thoughts on doing another startup? I'm sure you've put a significant amount of thought into social interactions and moderation of an environment and it's community, I bet there are some very good translations there into some sort of social media service/internet karma scheme/more accurately focused targeting of peoples actual interests (and lack thereof). I'm willing to bet chatting with you would make for some great intellectually stimulating conversation.

cmdrtaco14• 15 years ago

I'd very much consider it.

nknight• 15 years ago

I don't think I've ever seen a resumé covering a 14-year tech/tech-related career that fit on one page.

mcknz• 15 years ago

You can do that if you have a Wikipedia entry.

hemos5• 15 years ago

I should get him to the post his joke resume. It's not even just one page, it's two lines on one page.

cmdrtaco14• 15 years ago

My joke resume that I made a month ago: http://cmdrtaco.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Joke-Resume.p...

cmdrtaco14• 15 years ago

Someone else can link the joke version and try to get HN karma... I felt dirty just posting the first one.

StavrosK2• 15 years ago

My version would just be "wrote slashdot".

trustfundbaby• 15 years ago

Mine would be "google me"

michaelpinto• 15 years ago

Accomplishments: "single handedly destroying the productivity of a generation of nerds"

Samuel_Michon• 15 years ago

Hehe, that's exactly what I was thinking of when I read:

"Objective: To use all of my skills to change the world for the better. Again."

I can only imagine what great things I would've done with my time if /. hadn't been around. Or maybe I would've simply stayed at the online forum where I was posting before /. came along, wasting my time all the same.

Joeri• 15 years ago

You weren't wasting your time, you were becoming a technology generalist. It's a useful skill!

jgw• 15 years ago

Disappointed that Expertise bullets missed "Stuff that matters" right under "Nerds".

nolok2• 15 years ago

OMG Ponies !!!

staunch• 15 years ago

Do a new site man. Slashdot->[Digg]->Reddit->CmdrTaco's new site.

As much as I have love for Reddit its ripe for replacement.

r00fus• 15 years ago

Agreed. Slashdot's moderation system is still not replicated well, and it was a rather good implementation.

redthrowaway• 15 years ago

Digg's not quite dead yet; not sure it needs the brackets.

WalterGR2• 15 years ago

This seems to be true. Can anyone explain the downvotes?

According to Alexa, Digg is the 190th most popular site in the world. It shows traffic holding steady for the past few months. And clicking on the pageviews tab shows that pageviews have dropped over the last year+ but not extradramatically.

bobbles• 15 years ago

Ever worked in a team?

cmdrtaco14• 15 years ago

Managed teams for 13 of the 14 years ;)

tlammens2• 15 years ago

That's a no? ;)

kls11• 15 years ago

So is this a legit account, it was created 99 days ago which seems kind of short for someone as wired in as Rob should be, can anyone on this site confirm that the account is indeed Rob? I don't mean to be skeptical but it's the kind of thing that could kill the credibility of the site. A site full of people that pride themselves on being critical (polite but critical, I remind you) being duped does not bode well for attracting people who want scrutiny of their information and not just more confirmation bias.

It just seems strange to me, why would Rob be in the market for a job, I could understand being in the market for a team but not a job, unless he did something stupid like I did and lost it all, if so I would love to hear that story. If it is I apologize for being critical I would have just imagined you being here a long time ago. I was one of your first users over on the other site back in the day, I always though based on your post over there that you would love it over here.

hemos5• 15 years ago

I can absolutely confirm that it is him. Although you have to trust that I am in fact, hemos, but the other folks I know on here can attest to that.

thomson• 15 years ago

Maybe we should implement a PGP-style circle of trust on HN... =D

kls11• 15 years ago

Right, I get the irony of trusting the guy that says the other guy is the guy. I just though, I either missed something and a few people would pipe up. It's not scientific sure but suffices for my, "well maybe it's him, filter"

cmdrtaco14• 15 years ago

LIAR!

kls11• 15 years ago

BTW, as an aside, I am really happy to see that both of you guys are over here.

burgerbrain• 15 years ago

It wasn't Rob, but the account was handed over to him a while ago. You can check his blog to confirm that.

kls11• 15 years ago

Thanks man, I did not know that info of his story, my knowledge of his adventures stopped when I left /.

cmdrtaco14• 15 years ago

Right- an anonymous HN user squatted the nick, and handed it over to me when I resigned from Slashdot in august.

dandelany• 15 years ago

Per a recent interview[1]: "I promised my wife that I would take a few months off from work before I began looking for a job. That time is now at an end, so it’s basically time for me to start shoving my resume out there and seeing what my next chapter looks like."

[1] http://www.webstock.org.nz/blog/2011/rob-cmdrtaco-malda-inte...

kls11• 15 years ago

Thanks, apparently I missed some news.

pg• 15 years ago

Yes.

kls11• 15 years ago

Thanks pg, Ill take your word for it.

shareme• 15 years ago

Damn if I had a startup right now I would hire you as you are close to me geo-location :)

BTW, how is the startup scene in your area of Michigan?

hemos5• 15 years ago

Decent; but not great. Nate is doing http://ingenuitas.com

samstave• 15 years ago

I am not sure if i should rate you 5 informative, 5 insightful, or 5 funny!

Definitely no -1 overrated though.

Alas - I have but only one mod point to give on this den of iniquity!

plnewman• 15 years ago

mod parent up!

DanielBMarkham2• 15 years ago

Rob -- you're like Superman. Could Superman have a resume? Seems like you'd just give them a card that said "I'm f*cking CmdrTaco, damnit!"

(The reference here is to a famous fake letter said to be from Sean Connery to Steve Jobs http://www.exophrine.com/2011/06/sean-connery-to-steve-jobs-...)

Seriously, it brings up a good point. If you have lots of name recognition, what's the best way to look for work? I'd suggest networking, but it's entirely possible to be hugely famous without a deep contact list. I'm not sure Rob has this problem, but if he did, it would be a difficult one to address.

dchest• 15 years ago

(Note: the letter is fake http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/06/23/connery-jobs)

DanielBMarkham2• 15 years ago

Edited to fix. Damn it, I rather liked the thought that Connery would write that. It fits the legend of both men very well. My comment works either way, fortunately.

JonnieCache• 15 years ago

At the same time though, having your resumé sit at the top of Hacker News for a few hours simply because you decided to write a new one has got to be good, regardless of what's even on it. Think of each upvote as a personal recommendation.

runjake• 15 years ago

The link in Daniel's exophrine URL is very not work safe, due to the pics in the sidebar (a topless woman, in my case).

I'm not a prude, I just want to help prevent people from getting in trouble if they're browsing from work.

27182818284• 15 years ago

I greatly prefer Norvig's resume:

http://norvig.com/resume.html

Tons of amazing feats with lots of details while still feeling normal and pleasant.

ahpeeyem• 15 years ago

I enjoyed that Norvig listed being co-recipient (along with 6 billion others) of Time's Person of the Year award in 2006!

calibraxis• 15 years ago

That's funny, Norvig's papers on Scheme-on-Java are co-written by Tim Hickey. Including "SILK: a playful blend of Scheme and Java".

8ig8• 15 years ago

Not really a fan of this, but made me think of Matt Mullenweg's business card: http://paulstamatiou.com/im-2-on-google

The card reads: 1. Go to Google. 2. Type 'Matt.' 3. Click 'I feel lucky.'

Edit: Added what the card reads instead of just the article link.

boreacrat• 15 years ago

http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/

dmoney• 15 years ago

By the time I type "Matt", the "I'm feeling lucky" button disappears and, thanks to instant search, is replaced by a screenful (on a netbook screen) of ads for mattress discounters.

philwelch• 15 years ago

> If you have lots of name recognition, what's the best way to look for work?

Well, you could just submit your resume to Hacker News, and it would get upvoted a lot.

patio11• 15 years ago

Actual famous people have agents. For mere mortals who are very well known in a niche, put out the word that you are looking for work and work will find you. Resumes are not an accelerant for this process, since as soon as you're a resume you're competing with other resumes. Everyone in the market has a resume, but rather less people have a career that needs no introduction. I would not suggest downgrading yourself from that status (exception: post-offer pro-forma resume for HR after you have agreement in principle from decisionmaker).

kamaal• 15 years ago

put out the word that you are looking for work and work will find you.

Just curious to know, I am normal person or a mere mortal as you described.

How do I get hired without the normal Resume, Recruiter, HR, Interview process?

larrys2• 15 years ago

Agree. I would add (if I understand your point and I think I do) that putting a resume out is somewhat deprecating to a famous person. If Rob doesn't land a job, as happens with unsold real estate, potential employers (aware of the public search) will wonder why he hasn't been snapped up by someone else quickly. By going public you run this risk. But doing the search in private (or as they say "quietly shopping") you avoid some (but not all) of the risk. If nothing materializes you can go public later.

"you're competing with other resumes"

Very true. One of the best ways to not be compared is to approach things in a way that there is no competition. Approach employers when they are not advertising. I did this once and got a job that in no way I was qualified for resume wise. Once a job is advertised or with a headhunter you're being compared to someone else. (Same with dating most of us would rather not have to compete head to head with 20 other people and hope to be chosen the best of the lot.)

tibbon• 15 years ago

If I hire you, can I get a 3 digit slashdot id?

cmdrtaco14• 15 years ago

They don't even let me post stories any more, you think they let me re-assign UIDs?

kls11• 15 years ago

If you seriously want one, you can have mine, I have to dig the username and password up, it's been almost a decade since I last logged in, I am sure I have it in an old email somewhere.

Tichy• 15 years ago

You could try selling it on ebay :-)

SODaniel• 15 years ago

I can throw in my 3 number ICQ id :)

adestefan• 15 years ago

I had a 3 or 4 digit slashdot id, but the password is long forgotten and I no longer have access to the mail account that a new password is sent to.

scorxn• 15 years ago

No indent below Education is killing me!

cmdrtaco14• 15 years ago

College is left leaning.

spydum• 15 years ago

Is that a double entendre?

shortformblog• 15 years ago

Reading this resume is like having the resume for Michael Jordan hit your desk. You're so impressed that you don't know what to do at it, other than stare.

jimktrains2• 15 years ago

Why is it marked scribd?

mcpherrinm• 15 years ago

That's a linked to the scribd HTML version of the PDF.

grabble3• 15 years ago

You're confusing me Rob. You want to be someone's employee, follow someone else's vision, get a regular paycheck, dental plan yada yada - and yet you want to change the world. Again.

It's definitely possible to do, but not as likely, and resumes are a bit played out, esp. for someone with your credentials.

Yep. Totally confused.

kmfrk• 15 years ago

That's a bit bleak. In corporations, you work for someone; in places like start-ups, you stand a good chance of working with someone. You don't need to be the founder to get into that position, but it's obviously an option.

grabble3• 15 years ago

Rob doesn't need to parade around a resume to get in a startup. The boy is prequalified.

bdr• 15 years ago

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these...

laconian• 15 years ago

Gotta be a fake. Not nearly enough misspellings. ;)

hack_edu• 15 years ago

Resumes that can pull off an 'Objective' line always make me smile. Those that can't make me cringe.

fowkswe• 15 years ago

What did the 2 fingers say to the mouse? CLICK!

I'm CmdrTaco Bitch!

rch• 15 years ago

I'm working on some interesting things with zndx.org -- email with my username if your're curious.

j45• 15 years ago

Resspect.

grabble3• 15 years ago

Oh Rob, being a long time /. reader, I know you'd ban someone's account to Hades if they did on /. what your doing here.

Just sayin.

cmdrtaco14• 15 years ago

Notice that my resume isn't ON Slashdot!

crcsmnky• 15 years ago

Insert obligatory post from Netcraft confirming that XYZ is dying.

bad_user• 15 years ago

In Soviet Russia XYZ confirms Netcraft is dying.

thiagofm• 15 years ago

You are very good sir, and also lucky. You are talented and hardworking, but, still lucky.

There's a lot of talented and hardworking people here, like you, not as lucky tho.

blacksmythe• 15 years ago

  >> There's a lot of talented and hardworking people here, like you, not as lucky tho.

Not denying a significant random component to success, but success does not seem to follow a random distribution.

If given a choice between picking someone coming off a big success, or someone who looks equally smart but was only moderately successful, many would choose to bet on the person who was successful last time.

kls11• 15 years ago

The initial success though given all parts being equal is just as random, so you still have the same odds starting out. It's the same concept as what Buffett calls the *Lucky sperm club". His concept was just applied in the other direction, being born into success.

rdl• 15 years ago

If I had that background, I'd probably be most interested in some kind of political/activism startup (e.g. Votizen), or some kind of project/funding startup (e.g. Kickstarter). Presumably there are non-competes to make starting "unslashdotted.org" or something a no-go, and I don't think I'd want to after working on one from 1997-2011.

option1138• 15 years ago

Not really a lot of relevant experience. Would like to see some Hadoop or heck, even some C#. Let's talk again in a year or two.

wallacrw• 15 years ago

Your next move should be to rebuild local government with more control and transparency into public dollars. It's what we're doing at CivicSponsor, drop me a line if you want to talk.

RickMcAsshole• 15 years ago

That's childsplay compared to http://ezyang.com/ezyang-resume.pdf

j_baker• 15 years ago

Since nobody is playing devil's advocate, I suppose I have to. :-)

Have you done anything that doesn't fall under the "slashdot" header? If I saw this resume, my first instinct would be to say "Yeah, he made slashdot, but how do I know he's not a one-trick pony?"

Might I suggest a couple of open source projects or something to suggest that there's more to you than a degree and slashdot?

I like the nice, simple, and to-the-point layout. But I think it might be a bit extreme.

swah• 15 years ago

Its not for life if he eventually sucks. But now he doesn't want to work for you anymore!

cmdrtaco14• 15 years ago

I don't think anybody cares about patches to enlightenment, afterstep, or various X11 widgets written 15 years ago!

1pointOhhh• 15 years ago

How Janet Hoilian got more stock then Malda I'll never know.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1093580/0000950135-99...

Agood lesson in there for today's bootstrappers

ktsmith• 15 years ago

You need to look for Blockstackers in the document rather than Rob or Jeff.

shawnee_• 15 years ago

Personally posted over 15,000 stories, rejecting a million more.

Although 15K is not a small number, for some reason seems like it should be more. I guess that makes every user submitted slashdot story that was posted by cmdrtaco himself that much more cool.

An oldie but goodie: http://slashdot.org/story/05/03/02/1456237/yahoo-turns-10-fr...

brianwillis• 15 years ago

Objective: To use all of my skills to change the world for the better. Again.

I normally glance at career objectives, sigh, roll my eyes, and move on to the the meat of the resume, but this one is actually good. Anyone searching for a job, do yourself a favor and follow CmdrTaco's lead. Your career objective shouldn't be long or full of bullshit corporate speak, and if it is that will hurt you more than it helps.

thewisedude• 15 years ago

Kudos to Slashdot! It had a great impact. That is the word I would choose to use, rather than the word "Better". It is because "impact" can be quantitatively measured. "Better" is subjective.

bane• 15 years ago

Rob, if you are still interested in the social media space, have you thought about:

a) applying at reddit

b) starting up a reddit competitor (your karma system is still among the best I've seen)?

If not, what kind of area are you thinking of? I'd imagine your varied skillset would be awesome at a very small startup.

zotz• 15 years ago

Rob, if you're still looking at this thread, check this out:

http://cyclos.org

Change the world for the better by changing the money for the better...it can happen. This software even has a built-in karma system.

Thanks for /. Cheers.

wmoxam• 15 years ago

No Github profile. Less relevant buzzwords than a resume on Monster.com. Lame.

billmcneale2• 15 years ago

That's an odd résumé, which doesn't look at all like a software engineer résumé. Is this intentional or is CmdrTaco not an engineer at all? Programming languages? Frameworks? Specifics about the scaling and daily operations of /.?

It's also pretty light on the kind of position he's looking for.

If I were hiring engineers, I honesty wouldn't know what to do with such a résumé.

tankenmate• 15 years ago

I think it is safe to say that CmdrTaco is more than just a "mere" engineer.

billmcneale2• 15 years ago

That's also what I thought until I read his résumé.

Which tells me there's something wrong with it.

lionhearted• 15 years ago

I'm sure you've gotten tons of interest and I'm not 100% sure what we'd do, but I'll fly you out to Beijing and put you up somewhere nice if you want to see if there's a fit. A many-hats-wearing-change-the-world type person can do just about anything they want, when they find the right mix of something that excites them and good people to work with.

My finance guy who raises money for projects is here Dec 13th to 23rd so it's particularly a good time, but I'm flexible. Could also meet in Taipei around New Year's if you like. You might want to check up on my crazy antics before you throw in with me though, in the last couple weeks I've gotten a lot of comments ranging from "a literary hero" for the open letter I wrote to S&S to complete maniac, jerk, dick, etc.

Anyways, who knows, maybe nothing's there. But we can definitely watch some Cowboy Bebop, check out the Forbidden City, and see if there's anything worth changing in the world. Email in profile if it's interesting to you.

gallerytungsten• 15 years ago

So what's your dream job?

tobych• 15 years ago

Typo? Replace "self moderating" with self-moderating". Thanks for /.

Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda's Resume. Anyone interested?

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