justinY

500friends founder/CEO here.

It's not that people with 12+ years of experience are not as good. We were trying to screen out candidates (many of them who are smart) but have been "managers" for so long that they can't get their hands dirty and solve issues themselves (something you have to do at a very small team).

Don't take my word for it, 26% of people on our team are older than 38. If you're bored, check out some of their bios at 500friends.com/team

Admittedly however, this was not clear in our post, and it has since been edited.

Thanks!!

Hello sir. 500friends founder/CEO here.

It's not that people with 12+ years of experience are not as good. We were trying to screen out candidates (many of them who are smart) but have been "managers" for so long that they can't get their hands dirty and solve issues themselves (something you have to do at a very small team).

Don't take my word for it, 26% of people on our team are older than 38. If you're bored, check out their bios at 500friends.com/team

Admittedly however, this was not clear in our post, and it has since been edited.

Thanks!!

Brian,

In our original job post, we had specified that the ideal candidate would, "not have more than 12 years of MANAGEMENT experience." We UNDERSTAND that this could be misunderstood to indicate that we do not value experienced people. As you can see from the seniority in our team however, this is far from the truth. The intent here was to indicate that we are looking for a "hands-on" VP of Engineering. Someone who has coded in the last decade and can solve issues themselves (rather than asking their engineering manager to then delegate it to a developer :).

Don't take my word for it, check out the people who work at my company - 500friends.com/team. 50%+ are 30+, and 25%+ are 38+

That's because he (bob tekiela) was at 500friends until may of 2013.

In other words, op is lying/mistaken because we were not hiring for this role last year.

You do have a point sir.

My co-founder was previously the (only) VP of Engineering (and did a great job), but we mutually parted ways after the Series B. These things happen...

tl;dr, we are not "running through" them.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6043188

via 500friends founder/CEO.

As I mentioned to you in my initial apology, we had a fire drill. That being said, the tardiness was inexcusable, and I talked to the developer about that.

Regarding our interview questions, they were meant as an "initial screen." We do ask more practical questions in person. However, we figure that most smart software engineers can write a linked list or prime number solver.

Thank you sir. my response here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6043188

Justin (500friends founder/CEO)

500friends founder/CEO here. Look at my team - 500friends.com/team. Most people are who you may consider to be "old." And we wouldn't be where we're at without them. We do not discriminate against age.

What we meant is that we're looking for someone who has coded in the past decade. Someone that has been managing 1,000 people at Oracle may not be the right fit for a company of our stage. Make sense?

500friends founder/CEO here. Look at my team - 500friends.com/team. Most people are who you may consider to be "old." And we wouldn't be where we're at without them. We do not discriminate against age.

that is not true...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6043188

Thank you sir.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6043188

YES, YOU ARE CORRECT, THANK YOU.

And my team is very senior - check them out @ 500friends.com/team. We definitely value experience at 500friends.

this has caused so many misinterpretations that I have edited it out of the post completely...

But essentially, the ideal candidate was someone who was CODING 5-12 years ago...

It has been no longer than 3 months...

The reason for this is that if you haven't been coding (just managing) for 12+ years...you probably are not "hands-on" enough for a company of our stage.

We have gotten a lot of very smart but "big company" people who had applied for this position.

Sorry for the confusion however, most of our team is actually MUCH holder than the typical start-up: 500friends.com/team. We may be a lot of things but are definitely not ageist.

that's a good point...thinking of some edits...

We specifically ask for, "5+ years of experience building and managing strong engineering organizations," not "5+ years of rails 3..." lol

re: "edit2" - we're basically trying to convey that we're solving a real and serious problem (helping retailers compete with amazon). it's actually resonated with potential candidates since smart and motivated engineering leaders don't want to just be part of "the next groupon..."

I personally think Ron Paul is bad*ss, but that was what I was implying...(him getting pass while others don't)!

yes indeed. my next co. will likely be out of state.

i believe it's the 5th highest in the Americas, not the world - https://www.osac.gov/Pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=123...

I don't "mind" getting recruiter mail either...In fact, I do a lot of sales/outbound myself, so I can appreciate their job. However, recruiters that blanket everyone on LinkedIn (without even looking at their profile) are a different story.

We haven't had to worry about scalability yet, but admittedly, we could't offer 100 people funding and mentorship in the same manner that we currently do. To address this problem, we anticipate hiring someone (experienced tech entrepreneur) to own this moving forward.

Dave, you're right on.