From time to time I look at the WordPress Jobs Board out of curiousity… recently this one caught my attention:
Then I clicked on it…
That’s right folks… they need a CEO to speed up their website!
I hope they offer competitive salary, stock options, and annual bonuses! 
Recently I was flattered to receive a message on LinkedIn from a recruiter at Yahoo. It’s a nice ego-boost to think an iconic Silicon Valley company might be interested in little old me (even if they are a company on the brink of bankruptcy and/or takeover).
But I politely said “no”.
I have a bit of a high-maintenance client. He’s a nice guy and everything, but one of those people who’s a bit too A.D.D. for their own good… you know, always running a mile minute, talks in broken sentences across numerous emails and texts that I later have to piece together, requiring a fair amount of telepathy on my end to figure out what he really wants me to do.
Sometimes he asks me questions by email which cannot be answered in less than two sentences… and I just know that anything I write beyond 2-3 sentences will never be read by this guy.
Well, recently he asked me a question (I think because he’s angling to start some new tech start-up or app or something, and wants to test my interest), and I ended up putting an unexpected amount of time and passion into my reply. I guess the question hit a chord in me.
About one month ago (okay, actually a month and half — I’ve been busy) I was hired to be part of the Toptal network. (You can read about my hiring experience here.) So far the experience has, overall, been awesome. But like any job there are pros and cons.
Continuing on the theme of how job hunting sucks, here’s another example of exactly what I’m talking about: X-Team International.
No, I’d never heard of them before either.
I found X Team through this job posting on Authentic Jobs. It sounded like a good fit, so I applied, including a brief message why I thought I’d be a good fit. Like you do.
Continue reading Review: X-Team developer hiring process (hint: it sucks)
I did it! I successfully passed the grueling Toptal hiring process, and am now a Toptal-er. The process of making it into the top 3%, however, definitely wasn’t easy.
There are already a bunch of blog posts out there about different people’s experiences (good or bad) with the Toptal hiring process. Not surprisingly those that passed tend to have really good reviews of it, and those who failed… well, not so much. I’d like to add my voice to the chorus in as balanced a tone as I can.
A few months ago, I decided I’d had enough of my 19-year-old CTO-of-a-boss chewing me out for not adding enough line breaks in my code, and for not being “verbooose” enough (rhymed with “caboose” the way he said it) in my commit descriptions. Yeah. So I embarked on the only other thing worse than working for a 19-year-old spoiled twat — job hunting.
Continue reading Job hunting sucks – here’s a great example why
