Hacker News Reader

Comment by KevinEldon | Hacker News Reader

One way to interpret this is that the Agile Manifesto was published in 2001, so although it's possible you managed agile teams before 2001 it's unlikely, or if you've been successfully managing agile teams since before the manifesto and you're interested in a startup... what's wrong w/ you (seriously... if you're crushing it w/ agile for 12 years and now enterprises are all scrum-happy and you aren't making boatloads of cash consulting why are you considering a startup... oh, you're a serial startup guy... that's cool then you won't give a shit about some nonsense in a job posting, you'll work your network to get an interview or contact the founders directly and convince them you're worth talking to... and if you can't do that you're probably not VP material. No?)

One way to respond to this kind of job posting is "fuck that, I'm not going to waste my time w/ that shit".

View on HN

Nah... Lightweight processes were discussed as alternatives to waterfall way back in the 90s during my software engineering courses. "Rapid application development" and RAtional unified process were the "hot" lightweight methodologies when I started work in 1996. Scrum has been with us since 1995.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but when the Agile Manifesto was signed, a giant red button was pressed that reset the entire industry's memory.

All that existed before 2001 was waterfall. Nothing else. Just waterfall. Only waterfall. You are mistaken in thinking that iterative delivery, spiral models, joint application development, daily build-n-smoke, test harnesses or any such practice or technology existed previously.

Then in 2001, Agile sprung fully-formed from the brow of Zeus and saved us. Agile has no predecessors whatsoever and completely invalides decades of careful observation, discussion and investigation by generations of software developers and managers.

All books and articles published before 2001 can be safely ignored, and nothing can be learned therefrom.

Agree, no debate about when you might have managed agile teams... could be you're Ken Schwaber (yeah, had to look up his name), but it then begs the 2nd question I raised... why would you want to do a startup? If you have 12+ years of experience with what is now a very hot process why, why?, WHY? would you want to work at a startup?

A VP role doesn't sound like a C role. It doesn't sound like a really big equity play. You're not going to be a founder w/ a big payout (probably). So why do it?

I'm repeating myself. It really doesn't matter at all... someone will apply or they will not and the company will hire the right person or they will not... you and I will go along with our lives just fine.

I think you're overestimating how hot of a skill that actually is... But even if you could make "boatloads" of cash consulting, not everyone desires the road warrior lifestyle that goes along with consulting.

That was quite a performance of mental gymnastics.

I may have ingested performance enhancing liquids.

I think that your analysis is great. However, I'm not confident that Justin put as much thought into the posting.

I do not know this startup. But I suspect your spot on... this feels like the kernel of a good idea, a way to filter out the wrong kind of application (not necessarily too old) and it's being interpreted (or misinterpreted). I honestly hope the best for this startup and hope some woman or man qualified to help them gets an interview... I suspect, for top candidates, the language will be awkward (but maybe top candidates... not guys like me... see through that).

I think it's a clever in-joke that didn't quite come off right. Which is a pity, a good VP Engineering would need both experience and a sense of humour.

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!!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com