aefeuer

Hey man,

Thanks for posting here...I can't speak for big companies but I wouldn't be so reluctant to apply to a startup.

First of all, I'd say that most startups growing quickly will judge engineering candidates on merit, not connections. If you're a startup growing aggressively, hiring great people is so important that you end up using your personal networks not to filter candidates but rather to find more candidates than you'd otherwise get through people who apply cold. For our team, if we saw two brilliant engineers, a PhD who applied cold, and another wonderful fellow with a connection to our team, we'd hire both.

I'm sure there are some stereotypes about PhDs, but I'd be surprised to find a startup that held it against you. One piece is advice...I think showing humility is important. I've seen some PhDs who want to join our team and dive right in (that's great!) while others are only interested in leading a research team or something fancy like that even though they have no work experience (that's not great). I'll always give someone the benefit of the doubt so I won't assume that any PhD I meet is too big for his/her britches, but as a PhD applicant I think it's important to understand that anyone leading hiring has probably seen plenty of PhDs who don't come to the table with the humility you need for a startup job.

Last thought -- the one challenge in applying to startups is to make sure they don't accidentally reject you, e.g. we're a relatively small team and we get thousands of applications a year, and we try our darndest to read every one and review every code challenge and take everyone seriously. That said, I'm sure we make mistakes every now and then, and we overlook someone who's awesome. As an applicant, one way you can avoid that is to make yourself stand out. Was your PhD research really fascinating? Have you built something cool? etc. For example, people sometimes email me as the CEO instead of applying through our web site. It happens often enough that in most cases I'll introduce them to the head of recruiting on our team; I can't get involved personally every time or it's all I'd do every day. But if someone really stands out when they email me -- and in a substantive way -- I'll pay attention.

Sorry man, I know the job search is hard, especially coming out of a PhD program, but the good news is that you're in a highly competitive job market for engineers and most companies are hiring on merit.

PS if you're looking in Boston, feel free to email me [email protected] (Panorama YC S13)

We at Panorama are (yet another) happy Lob customer, so this is great news!

Congrats, guys, from the whole team here!

Also, if you see startups you like, apply for jobs there. I know that sounds really basic but I'm surprised how often folks don't apply for jobs they could get (or fear they need a warm intro, etc.). Companies, esp. startups, are so hungry for engineering talent that, IMHO, it's very much a meritocracy, and you don't necessarily need relationships, etc.

For the first 1-3 years, I believe, states/districts will have the option of paying extra for paper versions of the test. That's only a transitional option, though, and paper will be deprecated in favor of the online test. (One exception -- paper tests will be available indefinitely for students with special needs who can't take the test online.)

One of the big problems with online tests that we're seeing in some of our school districts is that many students don't have great typing or computer skills. Even though most students can probably type well enough to complete the tests, the extra mental challenge of typing is likely to artificially lower scores. So a test that purports to measure math skills might actually be measuring a combination of math skills + computer skills, and a school that's worked really hard to teach math might get docked because students haven't had a lot of computer experience.

This doesn't necessarily mean that online testing is a bad idea, but just one of the many things that we need to take into account.

Dynadot has been rock solid -- also, as a plus, they have an API (albeit a mediocre one -- but hey, it works). I like being able to register via CURL without dealing with their web site, and we integrated basic domain purchasing into our product as well.

We're big fans of Pipedrive

Congrats guys! We've loved using Lob, and really exciting to see everything taking off!

Panorama Education (YC S13) - Boston

We're hiring software engineers to help us bring data analytics to schools. We're currently working in 3,600 schools. Contact: [email protected].

We're also hiring school district coordinators to help us grow, for anyone less technical reading HN.