Seeking Mediocre Ruby Developers

http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/22396/seeking-mediocre-ruby-devs-flippa

21 11 14 years ago

careers.stackoverflow.com

AlexanderZ• 14 years ago

I don't like listings which say "ninja" or "kick-ass" as well, but using "mediocre" isn't much better.

Why not just say "good"? A job listing titled "We are looking for good developers" would make me want to read it further.

Matt_Mickiewicz• 14 years ago

It's about breaking through the clutter & being contrarian.

By now, everyone has realized the value of A+ players and they tailor the job ads to those individuals -- the problem being, that anybody who is any good is already employed, has their choice of opportunities and is never browsing through the Stackoverflow job boards.

slurgfest• 14 years ago

Maybe they just need people who are capable and can get up to speed, not the A+ designineer rockstar badasses of all time. Maybe they recognize that some of the people who just do their work are underrated because they aren't spending that much time publicizing themselves as A+ designineer rockstar badasses.

nnq• 14 years ago

"emacs users probably shouldn't bother applying" ...WTF?!

autotravis• 14 years ago

everyone knows emacs users are crazy.

greenyoda• 14 years ago

That bothered me a bit too, being an Emacs user. And what exactly is a "corporate type", and why aren't they wanted either? I'm assuming that the entity behind this job ad is a corporation of some sort.

ans• 14 years ago

yes sir, you are. you attract like minded people.

god damn, i WILL migrate my platform away from ruby, that's how hard finding ruby developers who arent populist or contrarian is

mdm_• 14 years ago

I'm always turned off by job postings that use words like "rockstar", "ninja", "superstar", etc. I'm mostly a Python and Javascript dev (with some occasional PHP, Java, and Ruby) and I'd rate my ability as "average". I'm currently employed and I build websites and web apps.

When I think of a "superstar" or "ninja", I think of someone who doesn't just, for example, have the ability to write Javascript code. I think of someone who knows every little trick the language has. Someone who knows the internals of V8 and/or Spidermonkey, and has maybe contributed code. Someone who sits on the ECMAScript committee. Who gets invited to large conferences to speak on Javascript. Someone who's written books that major tech publishers like O'Reilly or Apress or Sitepoint have published. Someone who has written a library or framework that thousands of developers use. I think of people like Doug Crockford or John Resig. Y'know, superstars in their field.

I have a suspicion that many of these companies probably only need an average, competent developer, but they use language that makes an average developer think they wouldn't have a snowball's chance.

compay• 14 years ago

Who would want to hire people who self-describe as mediocre? Probably a bully who likes pushing people around. Anybody with an iota of self-respect shouldn't respond to an ad like that.

throwaway54-762• 14 years ago

It's all parody, folks. They just want your attention long enough for you to consider them. Find a sense of humor =).

dhenzel• 14 years ago

I can not recall that i have ever read the word mediocre in a job ad :)

Seeking Mediocre Ruby Developers

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