A VC: A Great Systems Engineer Job/Challenge In NYC
DaveinHackensack
· 3 months ago
Fred,
Have you ever filled a job at a portfolio company this way?
More generally, what are your thoughts about the impact of technology on recruiting? Specifically, do you think that there will still be a niche to be filled for high-level jobs by old school headhunter firms? Up until the current recession hit, some publicly traded firms such as Heidrick & Struggles were posting some big profits. My assumption is that these firms provide a CYA factor to corporate executives and board members, and that's the main reason they're used, but they charge a bundle for that service.
David Noël
· 3 months ago
Dave - the Tumblr staff mentioned a nice fact in their announcement yesterday, let me just copy and paste this one here (that also enforces Daryn's point):
"Most of our team has come from the Tumblr community, including Marc, Jacob, Peter, Topherchris, and Meaghan." - that's 50% of the team which is awesome.
I reblogged that part on my own Tumblr by adding: "What you saying now, headhunters?"
Looking at the original post, about 60 Tumblr users have reblogged the post out of 200 so called "notes", thereby acting perhaps as "headcrowders".
"Topherchris" -- is that what his parents named him?
David Noël
· 3 months ago
Ha! No, his name is Christopher Price. But christopher.com seemed taken so he went with topherchris.com. Like Sackenhack.
daryn
· 3 months ago
Dave - I know that Eric got his foot in the door at USV via a blog post / comment, and I've definitely seen a handful of these types of posts from both Fred and Albert, so my bet is on yes (would be good to hear for certain).
To me, recruiting is where you go when you've exhausted your network. For tumblr, which has a great userbase (probably full of qualified candidates), and well as great social connections both internally as well as through their investors, I'd be surprised to see them use a headhunter, especially for these dev/engineering roles.
If I had any interest in being an SE, I'd be all over this. I'm a huge fan of tumblr, and very excited for what the future holds for them. Good luck filling these roles, hope you find people on par with the rest of the rock star team.
DaveinHackensack
· 3 months ago
Thanks for those thoughts, Daryn. Nice pics on your Tumblog, btw. Where were you on the kayak? Up by the San Juans?
daryn
· 3 months ago
Thanks! The kayak pic was out on hood canal, an hour and a half drive from Seattle, a world away... :)
fredwilson
· 3 months ago
i've been posting job openings in our portfolio here for years and this blog always delivers high quality candidates and while i don't have stats, i believe it may have been the channel that delivered the hired candidate in about half the cases
Wow, those stats, for their size, are amazing. Facebook is an amazingly leveraged environment. It's more than 1M users per engineer, which you can rarely find. But Tumblr must be higher with 2-3M per engineer, right?
Facebook is a bit different because it doesn't have the writer / reader split userbase. I doubt Tumblr does even 0.5M writers per engineer, right? Also, you can work on something that greatly impacts the whole userbase at any company...
But these stats alone should give people an idea of how good a job will be. Feeling utilized is pretty much the primary metric good engineers use to judge a job, perhaps second to having interesting technical challenges.
fredwilson
· 3 months ago
for a long time, marco did it all, now he has help, but not much. i'd bet it is multiple millions per engineer.
karen_e
· 3 months ago
And then one day, "Marco," like so many others before him, was no longer 22, or 24, and he decided it was time to have some sleep as part of his daily routine.
Daniel Ha
· 3 months ago
No need for the quotes... there really is a Marco! I've met him in person to confirm this. :-)
karen_e
· 3 months ago
Daniel, I have a funny feeling you might be a little sleep-deprived yourself. Have fun while it's still fun.
All Comments
Have you ever filled a job at a portfolio company this way?
More generally, what are your thoughts about the impact of technology on recruiting? Specifically, do you think that there will still be a niche to be filled for high-level jobs by old school headhunter firms? Up until the current recession hit, some publicly traded firms such as Heidrick & Struggles were posting some big profits. My assumption is that these firms provide a CYA factor to corporate executives and board members, and that's the main reason they're used, but they charge a bundle for that service.
"Most of our team has come from the Tumblr community, including Marc, Jacob, Peter, Topherchris, and Meaghan." - that's 50% of the team which is awesome.
I reblogged that part on my own Tumblr by adding:
"What you saying now, headhunters?"
Looking at the original post, about 60 Tumblr users have reblogged the post out of 200 so called "notes", thereby acting perhaps as "headcrowders".
For reference:
Here's the original post from Tumblr Staff blog:
http://staff.tumblr.com/post/193593437/were-hiring
And here's my comment:
http://echolot.tumblr.com/post/193595528/most-o...
To me, recruiting is where you go when you've exhausted your network. For tumblr, which has a great userbase (probably full of qualified candidates), and well as great social connections both internally as well as through their investors, I'd be surprised to see them use a headhunter, especially for these dev/engineering roles.
If I had any interest in being an SE, I'd be all over this. I'm a huge fan of tumblr, and very excited for what the future holds for them. Good luck filling these roles, hope you find people on par with the rest of the rock star team.
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2005/04/exciting_job_op...
Facebook is a bit different because it doesn't have the writer / reader split userbase. I doubt Tumblr does even 0.5M writers per engineer, right? Also, you can work on something that greatly impacts the whole userbase at any company...
But these stats alone should give people an idea of how good a job will be. Feeling utilized is pretty much the primary metric good engineers use to judge a job, perhaps second to having interesting technical challenges.