What it’s like to work at… 10gen
How did you get a job at 10gen?
My name is Brandon Diamond, and I’m a Database Kernel Engineer at 10gen. I’m very active in the startup community having served as the producer of the NY Tech Meetup; I’m also involved in several other groups including the Hacker Union (HackerUnion.org) as well as the Brown University NYC Meetup.
The emphasis I’ve placed on community activism has helped me to build a great network of friends and colleagues; it has also afforded me the opportunity to learn a great deal about NYC startups and organizations. Over the course of the past year, I became friends with a number of engineers at 10gen; I even began to use MongoDB in a number of my own startup projects.
When I decided it was time to start a new job, I reached out to some of the friends I had made at 10gen and asked them about open positions. Between the engineering-oriented company culture, open source MongoDB code base, and 10gen’s strong ties to the startup world, I knew that 10gen would be a great fit for me. I came in for an interview and started the following week.
What does your job entail?
The Database Kernel Team at 10gen focuses on the MongoDB database server and related systems. We construct features, implement improvements, and address bugs along with other user feedback. We also help troubleshoot unusual behavior in user’s MongoDB installations.
Working on the Database Kernel Team has proven to be a fantastic learning experience. I spend a great deal of time working with low level aspects of a wide number of systems; the code itself is well architected and efficient. Importantly, there are a great many people who enjoy using MongoDB; it’s great to work on an interesting, complex project that directly impacts so many diverse — yet technical — users.
What is it like working at 10gen?
10gen offers a uniquely awesome startup experience. The culture is technical, casual, and meritocratic. Between the fully stocked snack bar and the weekly office lunches, working at 10gen doesn’t quite feel like… well, work. The team is friendly, outgoing, and passionate — everyone is excited about what they’re doing and eager to share what they’re working on.
Hierarchically speaking, the company is largely “flat”; the CEO and CTO sit alongside the other engineers and both write a significant amount of code nearly every day. The emphasis is on progress, community, and great software engineering.
All in all, 10gen is a fantastic place to work if you’re a startup-minded engineer who doesn’t want to compromise on tech or miss out on the startup experience. I couldn’t be happier with my choice of employer.
Wanna work at 10gen? check out our most recent newsletter or contact us: support@college2startup.com for an intro.
Apply to become a Junior at 10gen Now: http://college2startup.com/apply/info/198
Financing For Startups
Found this brilliant read about how startups are getting funded nowadays on Business Insider:
There are lots of trends people have been talking about in tech financing—“superangels”; delayed IPOs; secondary market sales; and more.
But so far, few people have been putting the dots together: the entire financing landscape for companies is changing.
And, excitingly, it’s increasingly not just technology companies.
There are many new financing options for growing companies that weren’t available a decade ago.
Here’s how we break them down (we’ll visit each one in turn):
- Crowdfunding
- Accelerators
- Super-angels
- Late-stage private equity
- The long-delayed IPO
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-way-companies-are-getting-financed-is-completely-changing-2011-11#ixzz1eY3hdL2H
What Unemployment? Nothing like that in United States of Software
The New York Times recently reported a zero job growth in the US in August 2011 with surveys finding that job growth over the past 3 months were at 35,000, a far cry from the 90,000 jobs expected to keep up with the growing work force. Don’t mention this in the software industry especially startups, the situation is almost the complete opposite with demand for qualified engineers more than twice the supply. Many jobs are being phased out since they can now be automated, and several others are constantly outsourced because the labor is much cheaper. If there is one thing you don’t want cheap labor for, it is building software and that has contributed to the boom in the industry. Not too many people predicted this and those who did never cared to encourage young students to consider careers in Computer Science, and now the supply of talent coming out of our universities CANNOT keep up with the demand.
We have seen this first-hand at College2Startup and it was a big reason why the startup was created in the first place. Why are there so many software engineering jobs and not enough candidates? why don’t parents and universities encourage more students to get into Computer Science & physics knowing for a fact that in a few years most human activities will be run by computers? How can we get the software jobs into the hands of the right candidates?
In the past week alone, there have been 3 different startups who have indicated in their job submissions to us that they are going to pay you $10,000 if you refer your qualified (software engineer) friend or family member that eventually gets hired. That’s how competitive the hiring space is for startups. They all want the best people and they know every other startup out there wants the same, so it’s game on. One college2startup user who got hired in early August by a NYC startup came out of college in May not knowing how he would go about finding a job with his Computer Science degree, he had planned on working for the Government but also wanted to start his own startup down the road. Two weeks after receiving a job post in his e-mail, he was on his way to NYC from his college town at Urbana champaign to start a new $82K job as a software engineer at a VC-funded startup. The jobs are there in the software industry, but not enough of the matching talent.
Are you in college and bothered about the job market ahead of your graduation, should you consider switching majors? maybe. The industry is booming and doesn’t look like it will be slowing down anytime soon. In the middle of all the unemployment, maybe we can take solace in the never ending demand for Engineers.
Why your startup needs to use College2Startup
Let’s face it, majority of startups don’t know where to go to find potential hires. As a result, most resort to trying to tap up other companies’ engineers, go on Craigslist to post jobs, send job descriptions out on Monster and CareerBuilder, and what do you get in return? tens to hundreds of junk applications or resumes from job seekers who aren’t qualified. The problem is this: There is too much “noise” on these job boards. Startup jobs are different from corporate jobs, the office culture is different, approach to work is different and mentality is rarely ever the same. Startups often look for a specific skill set, and there really is no avenue for them to find people with these skill set…until now.
College2Startup works extremely hard to find the right set of people with the required skill set, who are willing and able to work at startups and have opted-in to our mailing list in order to receive notifications when startup jobs become available. The difference is that with College2Startup, you are reaching out to a highly targeted group of people with skills you want for your startup.
1.) It’s quick and easy. Reaching out to thousands of highly targeted and skilled potential hires is the dream of any startup, you want the best of the best but you also don’t want to jump through too many hoops to do it. With C2S, all you do is create an account, and start posting jobs from your account. Once we receive your job and agree that it meets the criteria for what our subscribers are interested in, the job gets included in the next set of jobs we send out in a newsletter. Simple as that. Within a few minutes of the job post, you will start receiving job applications.
2.) You won’t have to sort through junk mail. The people on our mailing list are opt-in and specifically want to work at a startup. They know what startups are like and understand the dynamics.
3.) The interview process starts with College2Startup. We are a startup too and we’ve worked at startups for a long time. We know what is required of a potential hire, and so we ask the right questions in their first application, so you can immediately cut down your list to the closest fit. For engineering jobs, we ask them to provide their github profile link, ask about the languages they code in, projects they’ve worked on etc.. just to give you an idea of this applicant before you even set up an interview.
College2Startup wants to create a “noise” free avenue for startups to find their rockstars.
