That sounds like another one of those If You Qualify, Why Aren't You Starting Your Own Company? situations.<p>If the four people (actually five, I agree with Tom that number four is really two people) they're looking for got together on their own, they could start a killer startup of their own, and just hire a biz dev guy as a non-founder.<p>I'd love to know what this startup is, and what value the existing founders bring to the table.
I saw that ad, thought about applying, but decided not to.<p>Here is why:<p>-- A list of common languages is something that pushes me away. Why? Because it tells me (by experience) that they want someone who can do it all (impossible). Its fine to list 2-3 languages or frameworks, but more than that just makes me very suspicious.<p>-- A bachelor's degree. I don't have one, I will not get one. Why ask for one when a lot of CS graduates can't program?<p>-- Experience? Sure, lots. But when you get older (I'm 32+), everything looks the same: just data sets, and problems to be solved. There is a blurry line between languages/frameworks/etc. Everything is just more of the same (I do, however, enjoy it!).
Ask for experience in engineering, and not for experience in the latest dohicketydo.
I stopped reading job ads because it made me feel unqualified to do anything. I have a lot of experience. I've solved a lot of hard problems. I've built a lot of enterprise software that a lot of people actually use. But of course, that's not good enough these days. You have to be a real genius to get a job. I'm not a genius unfortunately so I'll stick with trying to do start my own company and hire geniuses.
If you match half the qualifications, ignore that and apply. You probably have lots of unlisted skills they are looking for, too, and you can probably pick up new things if nobody is filling the role.<p>They are looking to meet a bunch of needs. You have an idea what the needs are and think you can meet many of them. So apply. It's unlikely to be set in stone that the needs have to be met by hiring the exact roles listed in the job posting.
With me, these kinds of complaints by designers conjure up an image of an ivory tower artist that is offended by being asked to take notice of some practical obstacle to his artistic plans. "Take me as I am, on my conditions; I don't care for what the world wants: I am an artíste" (read with French accent)<p>A job posting for a "project leader/lead developer" will ask for "an excellent project manager, team leader and software engineer, with the skills to communicate with clients and programmers", with some some technologies and methodologies thrown in. Every full-time manager can tell you that managing complex projects or teams is an art in itself. You can spend a lifetime excelling in only that. They could equally well argue it is ridiculous to ask that someone is an excellent software engineer as well. However, they don't: it is perfectly acceptable that one should be skilled in both project management and programming. That one should have people skills and technical skills, even though each of those could be a specialization in it's own right.<p>The exact same holds for design. If you are offended by people look for a designer/front-end programmer, but not by people looking for a project leader/software engineer, than you are suffering from a delusion of grandeur about the importance of 'design'. There are precious few companies that can use excellent 'pure' designers. All the others are perfectly content to hire someone with adequate design skills and a set of additional adequate skills that make him useful to fulfill several roles. If that is offensive to your, you need to leave your artist-ego at the door when you go looking for a job.
Job ads like that are a HUGE sign that the company does not value Front End Engineers, and should be avoided (they are a backend company)<p>And a link to a great article about how to actually hire Front End Engineers <a href="http://allenc.com/2012/01/how-to-get-front-end-developers/" rel="nofollow">http://allenc.com/2012/01/how-to-get-front-end-developers/</a>