I'm not sure if this is totally over the board here, but Rapleaf has a number of... unusual hiring practices. So I want to weigh in before others decide to copy their practice without thinking.
For example, the job description for an 'Amazing Software Engineer' is a little over the top.
- Amazing coder who takes no prisoners. Master of all things Internet. One of the best coders in existence.
- Intensely driven and proactive person.
- Extremely hard working. This is a start-up - team members work long hours.
- Quick learner and real doer. Err on execution over strategy.
- Thrive on working with A-players. Too good to spend long hours with B-players.
- Likeable person who garners respect on and off the job.
- Thrive on chaos, risk, and uncertainty.
- Should be easy to get along with, nice, fun, smart, ethical, and low-maintenance.
- Strong desire to build a more ethical society.
- Desire to be an early employee and want to be a real owner in Rapleaf’s future.
- Want to work with extremely large datasets and build portable APIs that thousands of other companies can build applications on top of.
Note: this job is really hard. You’ll be working with some of the top search engineers in the world and they are going to expect that you kick ass. We’re doing things that no one has ever done before and solving problems that have been open for years.
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I think this attitude would be totally fine, were it actually consistent with the work they're doing. But it's not. I applied for an interview there, and after making a massive deal about it, they sent me this, honestly, trivial test. They chose the time -- 4pm - 5pm on a Friday, and I got it back to them, while pointing out the errors on their test, in fifteen minutes. They then said they'd get back to me Monday.
Then there's a product. It's basically just security rooted in email addresses. I admit that it's a halfway decent heuristic, but it doesn't really solve any security problems because email isn't a secure channel. I asked them about this, and they gave me absolutely no indication they knew what I was talking about. Patient rephrasings lead them to say 'oh, I understand, yes, we can't do that, that's impossible.' But it doesn't answer the question of why they're building this product with this approach in the first place.
So take what you can learn from it, but with a grain of salt.
i actually went through their interview process too, and I do agree that the questions were a joke for anyone with a real CS background, and I really think that part of the interview process was in fact meant to filter out people with strong personalities that don't reflexively subscribe to the culture they're located within.
Comments
I'm not sure if this is totally over the board here, but Rapleaf has a number of... unusual hiring practices. So I want to weigh in before others decide to copy their practice without thinking.
For example, the job description for an 'Amazing Software Engineer' is a little over the top.
http://blog.rapleaf.com/jobs/#engineer
- Amazing coder who takes no prisoners. Master of all things Internet. One of the best coders in existence. - Intensely driven and proactive person. - Extremely hard working. This is a start-up - team members work long hours. - Quick learner and real doer. Err on execution over strategy. - Thrive on working with A-players. Too good to spend long hours with B-players. - Likeable person who garners respect on and off the job. - Thrive on chaos, risk, and uncertainty. - Should be easy to get along with, nice, fun, smart, ethical, and low-maintenance. - Strong desire to build a more ethical society. - Desire to be an early employee and want to be a real owner in Rapleaf’s future. - Want to work with extremely large datasets and build portable APIs that thousands of other companies can build applications on top of.
Note: this job is really hard. You’ll be working with some of the top search engineers in the world and they are going to expect that you kick ass. We’re doing things that no one has ever done before and solving problems that have been open for years.
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I think this attitude would be totally fine, were it actually consistent with the work they're doing. But it's not. I applied for an interview there, and after making a massive deal about it, they sent me this, honestly, trivial test. They chose the time -- 4pm - 5pm on a Friday, and I got it back to them, while pointing out the errors on their test, in fifteen minutes. They then said they'd get back to me Monday.
Then there's a product. It's basically just security rooted in email addresses. I admit that it's a halfway decent heuristic, but it doesn't really solve any security problems because email isn't a secure channel. I asked them about this, and they gave me absolutely no indication they knew what I was talking about. Patient rephrasings lead them to say 'oh, I understand, yes, we can't do that, that's impossible.' But it doesn't answer the question of why they're building this product with this approach in the first place.
So take what you can learn from it, but with a grain of salt.
i actually went through their interview process too, and I do agree that the questions were a joke for anyone with a real CS background, and I really think that part of the interview process was in fact meant to filter out people with strong personalities that don't reflexively subscribe to the culture they're located within.