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Thank HN: You guys helped me land my dream job.
383 points by jader201 on June 2, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 60 comments
I wanted to send out a quick letter of appreciation to the HN community for helping me make a connection with an awesome company, who later made me an offer, which I happily accepted.

Last month, I posted my resume on the "Who wants to be hired?" thread [1], and was contacted by several companies, many of which were relevant to what I was looking for, both in a company and in a position.

After a few rounds of interviews, one of those companies, Kaggle [2], decided to make me an offer, and within a couple of days, I accepted. Not only do I get to work with an awesome team on a great product, but I get to do it all from home. And, I get to travel to the great San Francisco a few times a year and meet face-to-face with the folks I will be working with.

My last day with my previous company was Friday, and I will be joining Kaggle two weeks from today. I will be spending this time off building my dream setup in my new office upstairs.

The main reason I posted this was just as a thanks to those that allowed that thread, and those that helped keep the thread active.

The secondary reason was to hopefully hear some success stories others may have had from the thread.

The third reason was to let others know that the thread was successful, and that I see value in it as a recurring whoishiring thread, benefiting others in the HN community looking for a good fit.

The fourth reason was to encourage those of you looking to get hired to post in this month's thread [3], as it may very well help connect you with your next opportunity.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7685170

[2] https://www.kaggle.com

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7833250



When I saw Jerad's post on Hacker News, he looked like a good fit for a developer role at Kaggle. Our team interviewed him remotely and I met him in person and verified that he has the talent, curiosity, and life-long interest in software development that'll make him a great addition. We're really excited to bring him aboard.

Thanks HN for helping us make a rare find!

P.S. If you're into machine learning and/or have an interest in developing a great site for a community (like Jerad), we're always looking for more to join us: http://www.kaggle.com/careers


Jerad's a great dev and a great person. You guys did well!


Oh, nice -- until I saw your comment I wasn't aware Jerad was a Louisville local! Congrats Jerad, and congratulations to Kaggle!


This is good to hear. Congratulations Jared.

On a different note, I replied in this comment because I would like to ask something. Are there any other job openings at Kaggle? The career page only shows product manager and data scientist. I think I'm a mix of data scientist and a backend engineer. But I don't think I have experience doing work in energy industry.


Apply anyway. If you fulfil every requirement of a job position, you're over-qualified (or quickly bored).


Love that idea. Thanks!


I'm looking to get more into the machine learning field. I've got some experience now, but looking to learn more. I'll probably submit through your site, but if you want to contact me directly that'd be cool too: hnjobs at inboxalias.com


Thanks Jeff, I can't wait!


Thanks for this! I am a big fan of this company. Application submitted.


Congrats! I'm a former Kaggle employee and it is an incredible place to work.


That's the best kind of endorsement any company can get. Kudos for taking the time out to say something positive about a former employer, normally whenever people make an effort to talk about former employers it is only in a negative sense.


For immediate happiness, I find the direct manager more important than the company. Besides my current employer, I recommend anyone work for Jonathan Clay or Mark Fussell if you ever get the chance.


Thanks, that's great to hear!


I had a similar experience. I thought "eh, why not?" and got a surprising number of high quality leads. I started a remote working contract for a group in London on the 12th and it's been working quite well.


Congratulations! Work hard, and remember this if you ever find yourself going through a rough patch or taking things for granted. Kick butt!


Definitely good advice, thanks. It'll be nice to have this to remember this opportunity, for sure.


I had kind of the opposite experience; interviewed one or more times with a bunch of the "Who's hiring" companies and only one had the decency to send an email with an update; the others went into radio silence.


This is what I like about the "Who wants to be hired?" threads. You're more likely to get relevant hits because (hopefully) the prospective companies are reviewing your skills before reaching out.


Me too. There were a few "Who's Hiring" companies where I went through multiple interviews- I even got a verbal offer from one- only for the companies to just stop responding to me.


In a strange way this makes me feel a bit better (so it's not just me). If there was no downside I'll publicly shame these companies.


I agree that the Who Wants To Be Hired thread is valuable and helpful. I was a bit late to the party, but I still had 4 companies and 2 recruiters contact me, one of which turned into an on-site interview at a YC company. I would definitely love to see this thread continue to be posted every month.


I too was impressed by the response from posting on that thread. I had recently moved to Germany to be closer to my partner and got spotted by a company that was really interesting to me (MenschDanke [0]). Had a few interviews, met the team and all that went well and I start working on Monday :)

[0]: http://www.menschdanke.de/ This thread should definitely be continued!


I too had a good experience and had the opportunity to speak with many interesting people... however the only thing lacking was the visibility of my preferences. I wasn't surprised that the majority of people who contacted me were from SF but everyone who had seemed oblivious to the fact that I'm based in Canada, not interested in relocating, but love to work remotely.

If we do another thread I will certainly try again (still looking).


Did you put your location and whether you working looking remote or on site work on your post or did they ignore that?


I did and it seems to have been ignored or missed by plenty of folks.


Can someone do another "who wants to be hired?" thread


First off, Congrats!

Secondly, I didn't know those things actually worked so I never bothered posting so good to see that they do.


Me too. Now I'm tempted to post one too, although I'm more of a sys-admin type person and not really a developer (though I am learning!).


Really happy for you Jared! I'm a full-stack Rails dev in Boston and posted in the new "Who's Looking?" thread. Wish me luck.


Congratulations! It's good to see people getting results from the "Who wants to be hired?" threads!


Is there any threads for people located in Europe only, Switzerland more precisely? ps. It's hard to find skilled people & vice-versa so this could really help


None of the whoishiring threads are location specific, but if you're open to remote, these may help you find a good remote fit.


Are you hiring? :)


Hope the dream continues when you actually start working. :)


Congratulations! I found my dream job in IRC. It's always the unusual places you find your dream job. Kaggle looks very interesting.

Good luck to both you.


Wow, congrats! Like a few people on this thread, I wasn't aware these actually paid off. Well done on landing an awesome job.


I'll have to give the 'Who Wants to Be Hired' thread a try when it comes up again.

Thanks for sharing your story! Very motivating!


Congrats Jerad!

P.S. Kaggle sounds like a great place to work - Just out of curiosity do you know if Kaggle is looking for any front-end devs.? :)


Congrats. It's encouraging to hear of a jobs postings that really do work.


Congrats! Lets hope more people land their dream job via HN.


Great post! And congratulations. Hope it goes well!


gratz on the job.

did you ever implement the 'bells' system for the animal crossing site? That idea intrigued me as a workaround for ad blockers.


It's been slow, but it's promised for the next release (after the current one we're working on, which should release in the next few weeks). I will admit we've not handled it very well, as far as timing, as we talked about it way too early.

But it's at the top of the list following this release, so nothing else will get updated without the Bells shop being implemented, however long it takes us.


Congratulation! Kaggle is my dream company too : )


Congrats and good luck at the new job!


Congrats. This is the best use of HN!


Congratulations! Good Luck at Kaggle.


Well done and congratulations!


Congratulations.. Awesome...


This is awesome. Well done!


Very cool and congrats!


congratulations! Kaggle is a great company!


Many Congrats.


congrats! :D


Congrats!


Congratulations. It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there like that.


Congratulations! Kaggle sounds like a wonderful place to work.


Interesting that this thread has gained so much traction. I created an "Ask HN" submission this morning asking about people's experiences with the monthly "Freelancer? Seeking freelancer?" threads, which got ignored and promptly burried!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7832404


Probably because the idea for this thread was given the official go-ahead by dang [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7682938)


I don't see what that has to do with the impact on my thread...?

The freelancing threads (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7162201, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5803767, etc) are popular, appear to be well-received and reliably receive a number of up-votes.

For some reason, me asking for people's experiences in that thread is attracting a number of down-votes. Odd.




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