j3

7 ms·

1.
by j3 15y ago
Agreed entirely. I only meant that when you choose do work harder than you have to, the necessary trade off is that you're sacrificing time with other people you love. A typical dev could probably work 60% of a normal schedule and afford a
2.
by j3 15y ago
Sorry guys, I know the typography needs works. The orange-on-grey is tough on my color-blind eyes. We've been stretched thin getting ready for this conf (CodeMash) and launching Hungry Academy.
3.
The World is Full of Real People(jumpstartlab.com)
106 points by j3 15y ago|63 comments
4.
by j3 15y ago
Thanks Allan, I hope people get excited about this. I really believe there's going to be a kid out there with some junky computer, a dial-up net connection, who participates in what we're doing and becomes a developer. If one of those makes
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by j3 15y ago
Go the non-developer route.
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by j3 15y ago
Awesome!
7.
by j3 15y ago
Send more details questions to hungryacademy at livingsocial dot com.
8.
by j3 15y ago
Maybe a library with a webcam-equipped computer? Friend with a camera phone? Volunteer somewhere for a few hours in exchange for using their equipment?
9.
by j3 15y ago
Yep, that's my understanding -- it's basically "we spent $xx,xxx training you, then you left. We think you owe us $yy,yyy." That being said, it's a company of humans. What good is a developer who's shackled to their desk while a spouse is d
10.
by j3 15y ago
Apply, then if you're accepted I'll call your parents.
11.
by j3 15y ago
I think the calendar/rush is a bigger problem than the will/funding. I will do my best, for future iterations, to invite the world.
12.
by j3 15y ago
It won't be required, but I'll strongly encourage people to join me in volunteering with CodeNow, a program teaching dev skills to high school kids. Check out http://codenow.org/ and scroll way down for the video of me trying to eat a jar
13.
by j3 15y ago
I'm sorry, I was mixed up about this. It's still possible for future iterations of the program, but for this one they've decided "no."
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by j3 15y ago
One big motivation for the video is that it's much harder to fake. It's easy to have my friend write some BS essay for me and submit it for a job, it's a lot harder to do it on camera. Effective development teams are powered by communicatio
15.
by j3 15y ago
I don't think they're common, at least not in the dev world. One of my training clients runs a six month "get familiar with the company" program where new hires do different jobs -- it's the same spirit but totally different intensity. Thei
16.
by j3 15y ago
I expect there will be many "technology switcher" applicants and am working to have diverse skill sets represented -- including those of us who've been developing for awhile.
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by j3 15y ago
I would say do the Gist essay, and at the close of the essay say "And I'm getting started with programming, here's a Github repo". That way you'd get past the person who's checking "Did this applicant follow the directions (submitting only
18.
by j3 15y ago
The LivingSocial in house team knocked it out in a couple hours -- they're crazy good. I couldn't believe we used "found light" in a hallway and had respectable results.
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by j3 15y ago
You should probably talk straight to the HR people who have all the expertise/knowledge about these things. Email them at hungryacademy at livingsocial dot com.
20.
by j3 15y ago
This detail is still under discussion, but I anticipate people will fan out to some of the other LivingSocial offices like Seattle, Boulder, or other up-and-coming spots. It's unlikely that you could remote from home / some other place beca
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by j3 15y ago
The program is onsite-only and the content is directed by what you need for the LivingSocial engineering team, which means Ruby, Rails, and many other related technologies. Sorry!
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by j3 15y ago
I wish I could say more about the salary. Let's say that I taught middle school and high school for five years, and both the training period and job afterwards pay WAY more than I ever got.
23.
by j3 15y ago
As a mortgage man and father of two, I totally agree. If you have ideas on how we can make this work for people in your position, please let me know. I thought about it being similar to one spouse working crazy hard while the second goes to
24.
by j3 15y ago
I wouldn't say internship, because to me that means "some learning, some stapling / paper folding." Our dream is that this program is "better than college." There are people out there that want to do what we do, we want them, so we need to
25.
by j3 15y ago
To be honest, if it were up to me I'd take only people who didn't have a programming background. If you look at our community, so many great people don't have the traditional background. Chad was a professional saxophone player. Others stud
26.
by j3 15y ago
I don't have permission to talk specific numbers in public and it's not really my part of the program -- but expect the during program salary to be a reasonable living wage in our expensive city and the full post-academy salary to be at or
27.
by j3 15y ago
I've been teaching programming for eight years now, and I'd say "What we do isn't that hard." If we were writing 3D game engines, yes we'd need insane levels of math, theory, etc. But writing web applications is mostly about following smart
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by j3 15y ago
Totally agree. I'm taking a lot of lessons from my time in Teach for America where they pushed us hard but still fostered the love for each other, the program, and of course our students.
29.
by j3 15y ago
Check out the instructions for the application and you'll see that, if you're a developer, we specifically ask for a project posted on Github. Sorry you didn't dig the video. I'm happy to have one where I don't say "Damn, I look stupid/fat/
30.
by j3 15y ago
We're engineers -- not pretty people. We don't care what your face looks like, but watching you explain who you are and what you're good at can give great insight into your personality. The application is more about whether you feel like a

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