lynnetye

This is a very un-HN-like comment, but...

In 2014, I was working at Homejoy (RIP), and started hanging out w/ this guy I sorta knew from college. We were reintroduced at Mission Cliffs, started climbing together ~5-6x a week, and talked a lot about startups since I was a newcomer who was just learning about the space. Oliver co-founded an analytics company (Sensor Tower) and eventually invited me over to visit their office which they were sharing w/ another analytics company started by two guys from college that I also kinda knew: Spenser and Curtis.

They were sharing an office in the same building as Dropbox (ooo fancy) and each had one, mayyybe two employees. At the time, they were both still figuring out how to increase their self-serve revenue in hopes of eventually selling to businesses. (Hilariously, I remember thinking how boring B2B SaaS businesses were compared to... on-demand home cleaning startups??!? Oh how young and naive I was back then, haha)

Anyway, fast forward seven years… Oliver and I got married, had a baby, and now Spenser and Curtis' “baby,” Amplitude, is all grown up! [insert crying emoji]

I cannot overstate how proud I am of them and happy for the success of Amplitude. Spenser is one of the hardest working and most down-to-earth CEOs I know, too, so this monumental milestone is beyond deserved. What’s more, Amplitude is one of my customers on Key Values, and I am also a very satisfied Amplitude user myself. I mean, these are the SV stories we all dream of (using each other’s products, being each other’s customers, and building a company that goes public!) and they're coming true, y'all!

The biggest congrats to Spenser, Curtis, and the rest of the Amplitude team! YOU DID IT!

I live in SF but was in New Zealand just 9 days ago. At the time, there were 6 confirmed cases and NZ had already put in place a 14-day self-isolation policy for travelers. Seeing how things _could_ be handled (and watching the U.S. from afar) made it extremely difficult to "go back home." I felt so much safer there. W/ all of that said, I'm actually surprised Arden didn't lock things down sooner.

No worries! I'm sorry to hear you were laid off, but am glad you aren't taking it personally and understand the reasoning behind what was certainly a difficult and painful decision. There's a lot of uncertainty right now –– for everyone –– but I think people who are resourceful, stay positive, and take initiative (like posting this on HN to generate discussion) are gonna be A-okay.

Btw, I don't know your email, but feel free to reply to my next newsletter (goes out on Thursdays) if you have specific questions or feedback on how I can be more helpful. I sometimes feel powerless because I don't know what I can do to help during these trying times –– I'm not a healthcare professional, I'm not rich, I'm not a political leader, I'm not famous –– but I can at least (a) connect individuals and companies who can help each other, and (b) do my part to inform anyone I know about COVID-19, the job market, and/or what I'm doing/thinking. It's not a lot, but hey, it's at least a start!

I'm the founder of Key Values, which helps software engineers find teams that share their values. Not only do I live in the Bay Area and have many founder friends, but it is also my full-time job to connect tech startups that are hiring w/ devs looking for new roles, so I think I have a good view on this.

I'm still gathering information on how coronavirus is impacting the job market, but what I know now is that many companies have laid team members off in the last week, and I suspect many more will soon. Most early-stage startups that did not recently fundraise and do not yet have significant revenue will struggle during this pandemic. If they were planning to fundraise this summer, fall, or winter, their investors and advisors have already told them start cutting costs in order to survive. Hence, a rise in layoffs.

More stable startups may have slowed their hiring efforts (i.e. "we planned to hire 40 engineers by 2021, but after adjusting our budget, we're now looking to hire ~20"), but they've also explicitly told me that filling certain roles are more urgent than ever.

While this all sounds bleak, some companies will endure, and a smaller number will actually thrive during these times.

Several folks who have recently been laid off have reached out to me. I know that getting laid off can give you the impression that every company is laying people off, but it isn't true. Companies who need to hire in order to keep up w/ unprecedented demand are ramping up and are excited to capture talented folks who were recently let go. So stay positive, put yourself out there, and keep looking!

I'm currently reaching out to all of the companies I work w/ in order to stay on top of their hiring plans, and I hope to message what I learn in my upcoming newsletters. It is the easiest way for me to keep folks up to date on what I'm seeing, and I absolutely will not take offense if people unsubscribe. Key Values: https://www.keyvalues.com

If socializing feels uncomfortable at first, but rewarding after, then it sounds like it's a good thing to "force" yourself to do. But if you're doing it just because you think you're supposed to and it actually isn't enjoyable, then maybe you can rethink what "being social" means. Or rather, rethink how you practice it. You don't have to leave your house in order to make friends, build relationships, or feel connected to other people! Invite people over. Or if you prefer 1-on-1 interactions, just invite one person over at a time.

My husband is super introverted and will always choose being alone over being in a big group of people. I'm the complete opposite. But we're both still social animals. We both get energized by camaraderie, interesting discussions/debates, and human connection – we just have different preferences for how we engage w/ and achieve those things.

I didn't read the book the OP quotes, but it rings true to me on many levels.

While happiness doesn't guarantee success, it sure has hell makes it easier to work hard!

The darkest year of my life was sophomore year in college. I wasn't doing well in my classes, so I dropped some hobbies to make more time to study. I got out of shape, gained weight, lost touch w/ my friends, put more pressure on myself to make all of these sacrifices "worth it," and welp – my grades never improved.

The next year, I fell in love w/ this boy.

After what most people call a downward spiral, I essentially fell straight into an upward spiral! Falling in love was (and still is)... inspiring. I got back into shape, rejoined all of the teams and activities I had quit, and also got straight A's in not four, not five, but all six of my classes (at MIT).

Being happy doesn't magically transport you to the finish line, but it certainly makes running the race more enjoyable. As the quote says, happiness is indeed fuel.

And lastly, I don't know if you're proud of yourself for losing so much weight, but you ought to be! When I get out of shape, my goal usually starts out as "I want to feel good in my body." But every time I start the process (and it happens frequently because I'm a bit of a yo-yo-er), I start to get really geeked by the progress. Progress is one of the only things that reliably and consistently makes me happy. (It's the best!!!)

Aw shucks, thanks for saying so! :) And if by regular you mean once a year, your wish may very well come true...

I loved this article and just want to thank Dan and Scott for all that they do. I appreciate how moderating a forum like HN leads to deep introspection about what triggers us. "This seemingly trivial stuff, about people getting mad at other people on the Internet, is actually tied to this much deeper and more fascinating process of what goes on between people and what goes on in oneself."

It's too easy to judge quickly (i.e. never reading but criticizing an article based on its title) and misunderstand strangers on the Internet. I admire the extreme patience that our HN mods have in helping us to judge less quickly and respond more thoughtfully to one another here. It's no doubt a challenging, emotionally taxing, and never-ending job, but y'all are doing it and doing it well. Thank you.

Lots of great advice here already (especially #1 and #4 from @csa), so I'll only add two things:

1. A good exercise for you and your wife: take turns expressing how you each feel and why you feel that way to one another. Then, take turns describing the other person's feelings and frustrations back to each other. Sometimes the biggest source of frustration comes from feeling unheard. Doing this forces you to actually listen (vs. waiting for your turn to talk) and helps demonstrate that you're at least hearing and understanding where the other person is coming from.

2. After talking to your wife, you may find out that there really is an unfair imbalance right now. If so, it's important to get a sense of whether this imbalance is short- or long-term. Most couples where both partners work take turns prioritizing each other's career. It sounds like you just need to find out if what's happening right now is forever or not, and maybe get a little more recognition from her for how much you're stepping up right now.

I was just talking to the team at Airtable this morning about whiteboard interviews... and how they aren't binary. Companies use whiteboards in their interviews to varying degrees, and it's not always to answer algorithms or questions about data structures.

I also wrote about this exact topic last year: https://www.keyvalues.com/blog/engineering-whiteboard-interv...

You are spot on, my friend. These are the tough questions I've been asking myself every day for the last few weeks, and I'm still trying to answer them!

I've had two people/friends do a bit of contract work for me (a few hours a week), but I'm not sure if hiring someone full-time is the right move. Not only do I genuinely love what I do every day, but I also really want to soak up the freedom I currently have while I still can. Real talk, I'll probably enter mommyhood in 1-2 years, so not being beholden to employers, investors, or employees is something I want to cherish for a bit longer. But who knows! Only time will tell... :P

(I know this is kind of "not allowed" on HN, but... <3)

1. I think only ~1/150 companies I talk to are actively hiring part-time engineers, so it's unlikely I'll add this category any time soon... if ever. (Sorry!)

2. A lot of people don't trust employers, but in reality, hiring managers aren't trying to mislead people. Especially at small startups. It's extremely expensive (and heart-breaking!) to interview, hire, and onboard devs only to have them leave soon after. It's a competitive market and software engineers have their pick of the litter, so companies want to attract the right candidates, the ones who are truly aligned w/ their values and will stick around for the long haul.

3. Trust me, I don't want to use OR logic either! Once there are enough companies on Key Values for AND logic to provide a good user experience, I'll switch. For now, the results are sorted by number of matches and how highly companies rank those matches.

Every company summarizes their engineering interview process in their profile. You’ll find it in the right-hand side panel.

Companies pay a yearly subscription fee for content creation and listing their profile on Key Values. I never charge software engineers and I don't charge companies any placement fees for the engineers they hire through Key Values.

Having a contingency model is definitely the more lucrative path, but I'm against it for two reasons: (1) I'm a dev, not a recruiter, and (2) I think placements fees are part of what's broken in recruiting. The incentives are misaligned among recruiters, candidates, and employers when recruiters only want to place someone just long enough to hit the 90-day mark.

^^^ This.

Key Values is not valuable because of its code. In fact, it's a simple static site that I could rebuild in a couple of days if I wanted to.

I meet a lot of technical founders who love coding and avoid doing everything else. They run the risk of building a lot of fancy features that no one wants or needs.

I didn't realize you already did $27k this month! That is tremendous and you're only just getting started! GO BEN.

Yes, I spend a good amount of time doing marketing and sales, but I also spend a lot of time working w/ each engineering team, helping them to articulate and express their values. Culture is really hard to pinpoint. Companies (and especially eng teams) struggle to identify and convey what's actually unique about them, and many don't even realize they're different from other companies!

People sometimes ask me how I scrape content for each profile, but it's obvious to anyone who actually reads them that they're thoughtfully curated. A lot of time, care, and attention goes into each profile, which is what makes Key Values valuable.

Key Values (https://www.keyvalues.com) is a one-woman show (oh hi!). I started Key Values as a side project two years ago, but it quickly turned into my full-time passion and business. I'm doing ~$30k/month and it's almost all profit since I don't have an office or any employees. I recently talked to Courtland of Indie Hackers (already mentioned in the comments) about how I got here: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/086-lynne-tye-of-key-va...

I would never have started Key Values w/o Indie Hackers, so I highly recommend you spend some time there. It's a bottomless treasure chest of inspiration.

One place to start is by narrowing your search to companies that are:

1. Public Benefit Corporations ("A Delaware public benefit corporation (PBC) is a for-profit corporation intended to produce a public benefit and operate in a responsible and sustainable manner. Unlike traditional corporations, a PBC must consider its public benefit purpose and interests of those materially affected by the corporation’s conduct in addition to stockholder value.")

2. Certified B Corps ("Certified B Corporations are businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.")

In reverse order:

2. Yup! Companies are limited to choosing 8 values. They're also forced to rank them in order of importance. As you can see, not all companies select Impressive Team Members.

1. Pretty much every other job board / recruiting tool out there filters on compensation. If you're optimizing for comp, you have plenty of places to go! However, there's no place to discover companies that share your values. There's no place to learn about the team or what your day-to-day might look like before jumping through all of the other hoops (cover letters, apps, take-home tests, whiteboarding questions...). Not until Key Values that is. This is the space I'm working to fill.

Additionally, I'd argue that constraining your job search based on comp is a mistake. After some level of $$$, an additional $10k-$20k/year means a lot less than everything else. Value alignment (aka your happiness) is worth so much more.

As a not-so-extreme example: you couldn't pay me a $300k/year to work w/ people I hated.

Highest number of matches and the ranking of those matches. For example, if you select values A and B, a company that lists A as #1 and B as #2 will show up before a company that lists A as #7 and B as #8.

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by it starting on a non-zero number. Perhaps you have one of the tags selected?

Not yet, but I will! There are a lot of features to add once there are more companies on the site. As a team of one, it's all about #prioritization :P

There are 45 values to choose from and teams select (and rank) the 8 that best describe their engineering culture. I then work closely w/ them to qualify them (aka cut the fluff, answer tough questions, and "prove" it).

I'm using OR logic until I have enough companies for AND logic to provide a good user experience. I'm looking forward for that day to come, too, trust me!

If you select multiple values, the results will be ordered by number of matches and prioritize the companies who ranked those values highest.

Yes of course! It'll happen once there are more companies on the site. For now, Ctrl + F works great on the homepage :P

Oh, and depending on the company and their product/service, I'd also look at their other social media accounts. For example, some have active Instagram and/or YouTube accounts which can be incredibly insightful.

Ps. One lesson I've learned: never judge a company based on their marketing website.

If you're a software engineer (or will work closely w/ engineers), I built Key Values (https://www.keyvalues.com) to help w/ this.

Before building KV though, my research process included looking for and reading:

- the company's career and about us pages

- an active blog w/ recent posts (w/in the last 2 months)

- LinkedIn / Twitter / GitHub of founders and existing team members (I'd also look for any old blogs written by (or press written about) these folks before they joined the company)

- checking to see if the company hosts meetups or hackathons I can attend

- seeing if I know anyone who currently works there or worked there before and then reaching out

- cold emailing or Tweeting current team members