Consider this a job offer to work at 42Floors

Dear 42 Floors: why exactly do you think you need rockstar software talent? Your execution is obviously phenomenal, but it's not like you need a team of &#60;del&#62;haskell/clojure ninjas&#60;/del&#62; grizzled enterprise vets who know how to tackle ridiculous complexity of integrating dozens of services against ever changing requirements.<p>edit: all i'm trying to say is there are top 90% devs, and 99% devs, and 99.9% devs... not exactly sure that 42Floors needs them. if they did need them, they wouldn't be saying things like<p><pre><code> &#62; We can't compete with Google or Facebook on salary. We &#62; can't compete with being a founder on equity. So the most &#62; important thing I have left is my ability to commit to an &#62; individual employee's personal development </code></pre> 99.9ers don't need you for personal development. Sounds like they're trying to get young potential while its cheap. Nothing wrong with that, but when we discuss it, we should say it like it is.<p>by the way, I quit my 90% job to do hacker/school this summer, I intend to come out a 99er with mad functional programming chops, looking to join a team of 99.9ers so i can someday become one.

As a 30 year old with a wife, kid, and semi soul-sucking full time data job, this post causes me to feel both inspired and regretful. This guy would NEVER hire me, which I guess I should feel bummed about, but instead I'm just fired up. I will continue to get home, do the dad/husband thing, and then from 8:15 to 11:30, work on my projects. Wake up at 5, do it all over again. I HOPE I will one day be half as good as this Dan Shipper kid (whose posts I really like by the way, particularly his 2016 not 2012 post)<p>I hope I can get job offers like this one day, so that I can turn them down. Not saying that a company like this isn't awesome (I'm sure it is), but if you're good enough to get hired by them, then you shouldn't be hired by anyone. You should be hiring.

Am I the only person who feels really embarrassed for everyone involved? This is not the kind of thing that should be done in public. If you want to court someone then <i>get in touch with them</i> and make some real offers. If they say "no" even after you've made a couple bigger offers then respect that, and move on with your life.

&#62;<i>"You're only a sophomore in college, but you've already started several companies."</i><p>Pray tell, how are those companies doing? What are their financials? How many people are in their employ?<p>Oh, right, I forgot. A "business" in the Valley involves none of the things that it does anywhere else in the world.

Hiring very talented young people out of college is an easy way for companies to get lots of value for cheap.<p>If you haven't read pg's "Hiring is Obsolete", I suggest you do because it more or less explains why someone like Dan shouldn't take this offer: <a href="http://paulgraham.com/hiring.html" rel="nofollow">http://paulgraham.com/hiring.html</a><p>For someone in college this type of stunt could be quite intimidating, and mentorship is appealing, but (in general) people will be more willing to help you out when you are doing your own thing than if you are working for someone else.<p>Also note that it does not mention that he can continue to work on his own company, which (to me) is what appears to make him happy.<p>Why put your life on hold for someone else when you've already got so much going for you and an entrepreneurial attitude in the first place?

It's nice of you to put your recruitment email at the bottom of the post, but the only message I'm getting from this post is that you needn't bother applying until you're already a startup founder, or have written several books, or have a million downloaded app, or whatever the qualification is these days.<p>Is that really the message you want to send? "Hey, Almost Everybody! We're not interested in you!"<p>All the programmers who go to work everyday, do a damn good job, but don't follow it up with a daily blog post, or a screencast, or a brand new Haskell library. Are we not worth considering?

Crap..I did not know Dan Shipper was a real person for a minute. I thought Shipper" was a reference to a fictitious person who regularly "ships" products.

Let me translate this:<p><i>We can't compete with Google or Facebook on salary.</i> -&#62; We cannot raise money enough of capital from smart people with money but we think you are stupid to join us (otherwise you will be one of "smart people with money").<p><i>We can't compete with being a founder on equity</i> -&#62; We want to be rich ... that is pretty much the only reason why we are doing this.<p><i>So the most important thing I have left is my ability to commit to an individual employee's personal development</i> -&#62; You will work min 70 hours a week.

Recruiter here. The first thing I think when I read this is "my god this seems like a great place for people who are really junior. What on earth does some super senior engineer want as far as "personal development" goes when you clearly think they are at the top of the field?" I really wish more Silicon Valley companies were willing to take a risk on some fresh young talent instead of everyone contacting the same 200 rockstars 258020823 times. Be creative. I see no reason this person would join the company from that letter.

Refreshing read – the part about how employers need to actively court employees, how those top of their game are less likely to send out resumes, etc.<p>But I feel some points are on the way to being old and cliched (like the terms 'rockstars' and 'ninjas'.) Not just from 42Floors but other recruitment post descriptions.<p>I'm referring specifically to the perks and 'freedom' the companies promise. ie:<p><i>Unlimited Holiday/Vacations days!</i><p><i>Work on anything you want! Make your own projects!</i><p><i>Don't sign anything. Total freedom!</i><p>I never worked at any place that offered these perks (I'm not that awesome yet) but do people really take advantage of them? Isn't it kind of weird to offer those perks – what exactly are is the company hiring for then? Doesn't it come off as lack of focus if employees can do whatever they want? (Unless they're in the R&#38;D department, or they can do whatever they want 20% of the time)<p>It's also like the perk of having access to a game room filled with XBox's. I interviewed at a place where there was an XBox in the center of the work area – how will anyone feel comfortable playing in there, surrounded by others working away. It just feels like a gimmicky perk. Personally, a better perk would be access to a nice bathroom with a shower for those late nights when I need to refresh.

OT:<p>If my name were Jason Freedman, I couldn't bring myself to name a company "42Floors", since a guy name Jason Fried has already made "37signals" a household name.

I really don't get why startups <i>completely</i> repurpose their blog for HN. What's 42floors supposed to be exactly, randomstartupblog.com that secretly rents office space?

Dan is a brilliant young dude and a great friend who totally deserves this recognition, whether he takes this offer or -- knowing him -- continues to work on making his own projects amazing.

It's refreshing to see this sort of tactic on the end of the employer because it shows that the process really is a two-way street. The potential employee is as valuable to the company as the company is to the employee (in a good match). It would be nice to see the current hiring paradigm (company holds all the cards) evened out.

If you're interested in the mentioned The War for Talent conference, just click the link in the article and you'll receive a speaker discount of 25%.<p>Not sure if this was intentional ;)

This kind of reminds of those big, public marriage proposals that people make at Sports games. If the answer's a no, it could be... awkward.

Congrats Dan! Regardless if you take it or not, you're on a great path. This post by Jason speaks for itself. Keep it up

The site hasn't really changed in the month since launch. It's hard to believe that's possible with 2 devs + a designer on-board. (I'm personally involved in this space, so I've been keeping an eye on the site, and have a good idea of what can be shipped in a month)<p>It looks suspiciously like they burned through a lot of money developing the initial site and now are looking for a cheap way to continue development. Going after someone still in college is one way to do that I guess.<p>Anyway, maybe I'm wrong, and they're working on some new super-secret v2 that will blow everything out of the water.

I had the pleasure of employing Dan as an intern last summer. He's absolutely top notch and I wish there was some way I could have kept him.

Dear 42 Floors: People are probably more likely to take your job offers seriously once you figure out that "awhile" is an adverb, "a while" is a noun and there's no context in which "for awhile" is grammatically correct.

Smart guys, this is the way to do recruitment.

<p><pre><code> We can't compete with being a founder on equity. </code></pre> Why not? If you need quality developers OFFER THEM FUCKING EQUITY!! They'll listen, trust me. Offer them 0.07% equity and the most talented developers out there will brush you off and joke about you while downing beers with their friends on the weekends.

I've worked at places that "only hired the best" and such. I think this kind of mantra coming from employers is as much self promotion as it is a statement of policy.<p>As in, our stuff must be wonderful, we only hire the best.<p>But really, having a plan that requires that everyone be an Einstein is somewhat limited - a more robust organization is one that can accommodate &#38; make maximum use of what skills an individual has. Obviously this has its limits, but making a condition of success that everyone has to be a potential Nobel Prize winning renaissance man is a bit limiting as well.<p>One alternative to this is the strategy explained by Lieutenant Keefer in the "The Caine Mutiny": "The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots"<p>If you can set something like that up, you are golden, the supply of idiots being much more plentiful and cheap than geniuses.

Wouldn't be too impressed by a job offer that can't offer a good pay or equity... I mean, their target is already pumping out his ideas as companies as far as i can incur from the post...<p>what exactly is in it for him besides ego stroking?