From: jfry <jeff.fry@...>
Date: 2005-10-20T02:41:58+09:00
Subject: Re: How to hire a rubyist?

Aemca, Zed, and Infocom, thanks for your replies.

Zed & Aemca, I suspected I might hear that your first thought was that
this was a job with evil spammer scum. That was the first question I
asked before I started here, and I thought that I'd written an ad that
would disuade that...but clearly I was wrong. Anyway, it turns out that
our customers are mostly good (& neutral) guys who send mail that
people ask for it - folks like Sun, IBM, NASA, Habitat for Humanity &
the American Federation of Teachers. When I interview candidates I
always ask what they think about working for a company that sends large
volumes of email. The best applicants almost always want to see that we
are not doing something seedy. When someone replies that they have no
morals about who they work for that's pretty much the end of the
interview for me - I don't really want to hire someone who's decisions
aren't guided by some sort of ethics (doesn't need to be the same
ethical compass as mine, but I figure that if you are willing to build
software that screws people, you are also probably perfectly happy to
screw your coworkers).

Anyway, I'll definitely rewrite the ad to make it clear that we aren't
scum. FYI, we are also a very solid company - 11 year old and
comfortably profitable for 10 of those, but still small enough and
agile enough that the team of coders is a real pleasure to work with. I
truly recommend the company as a place to work and would be happy to
answer questions if anyone is considering it and wants to know more.

Thanks again for the feedback,
Jeff