MG is following a proud tradition and trying some different ways of attracting attention to some Trade Me job opportunities.
I was given one of these this week:
It would appear the perfect candidate is somebody who hassles their colleagues, steals things and surfs porn at work. :-)
PS:
I still can’t work out why Trade Me isn’t inundated with people wanting to work there. If I was an up-and-coming web person in NZ it’s the first place I’d look, even if it was just to get some experience for a couple of years. There is nothing even close to it. But it doesn’t seem to happen. I saw a documentary this week which included an interview with Richard Taylor from Weta – he said they get many thousands of applications each year for just a handful of positions. Why the difference do you think? Do people just not realise how much they could learn from working at Trade Me?
Interested in your thoughts …
TradeMe have got some great passionate developers working there (Scott and Phil have done good presentations at the Wellington .NET User Group).
Now they are working with all the cutting edge technologies and processes, loosening their stance on VB, and have such a dynamic and rapid-pace environment, they really do seem to be quite an attractive place to work — I can’t understand why everyone wouldn’t want to work somewhere like that either :)
In case this starts looking like a job application, we have a similar environment at Xero, and I guess come from a similar pedigree (plus a lot of Rowan rubbed off while he was here) – so I’m not interested in shifting. While I’m at it, we are hiring too :)
Kirk
I will declare this now , none of what I am about to write is necessarily what I think , its how I assume the people your looking for would think. Infact I would probably disagree with most of the following.
• Maybe allot of people see Trademe as a finished product and cannot imagine being involved in developing it further and adding new features.
• Some people would see Trademe as already had its cake and there could not possible be any more left.
• Developers would probably look at starting out at a web development company.
• Entrepreneur developers would probably look at starting their own business.
• Trade me isn’t international and probably wont look all that great on my CV
• Its all .net and there isn’t much work in that area.
Despite the success of several companies we still lack the think big attitude.
I’m stunned MG had the crew had to promote applying for a job at Trade Me. I would have assumed the experience of working there would be a total winner for anyone. I had a look, but being a call center girl was all I’d be able to apply for, and honestly, been there done that, never going back ;)
I’ve had two opportunities at looking to join TradeMe – the first was back at the end of 2000 after being layed-off (go dotBomb), someone gave me Nigel’s number and email address. I never called for some of the reasons ray mentions and the idea e-bay could still play a factor in the NZ market.
The second time (2004, when TM had just moved to Anvil house) was for a Frontend/usability position. I turned up to the interview and was asked all sorts of things about SQL Server cluster indexes and tricky VB questions, which totally put me off the job.
For most new or up-and-comers I’ve encountered they seem to prefer the idea of ‘variety’ that consulting/vendor land gives or the ‘safety’ of government.
I forgot. There is the “you so big and awesome, what could I offer” syndrome
Maybe they dont pay enough? *grin* Maybe not everyone works/lives in Wellington (or wants to). Maybe MOD scares everyone with his sideburns??? All these things should be considered……. ;) The ad was quite clever that I saw in computer world tho. Tracey.
Perhaps some people in NZ have got over TradeMe. There are many other exciting things happening on the web other than Trademe. I would rather start up my own development company than get a job working for Trademe.
Trademe has pretty much become like a Telecom of old monopoly in New Zealand and we know that innovation does not happen without competition. For that reason alone I wouldn’t be interested.
Being a relatively young web developer I would jump at the chance to work at Trademe, but as mentioned by previous posts I have my own business that I am trying to build. I’m over 30 now so taking a job for a couple years to learn more, isn’t so appealing anymore. Besides that’s how I spent my teens and 20′s.
TradeMe has a bit of a bad rep around some of the circles I frequent — last week I had two totally (very large) independent parties have a spazz at having to deal with them. Reputation counts for a lot. :-)
Also not everybody wants to work for the big boys — there’s a lot to be said about making your mark in smaller company.
They’re also a .NET house which immediately eliminates (or turns off, depending on your point of view) a good portion of the developers out there.
Rowan, your first sentence nailed it. Although we do well from Trade Me Jobs and other ‘traditional’ means this was an opportunity to try something a bit different and have some fun at the same time – we’re not fussy about where we find good people.
Having said that there’s no doubt that it’s a tight market for good developers and I worry there is a misconception that we’re big, slow and unnecessarily corporatised. Not true. I wonder how many here would be interested to learn that there are currently only 8 devs in the team and that we still deploy to production 9 times a week. We offer a great high-energy working environment where we just want to get stuff done.
We have plenty of interesting projects queued up and we want to grow the team so we can get into them faster. The opportunity definitely still exists for smart guys and girls to join us and make their mark at Trade Me. If anyone cares to drop me a line at alan[at]trademe.co.nz I’ll be happy to discuss TM, the dev team, Planning Poker, our use of C# & VB.NET, whatever.
I also reserve the right to ask for your CV if it’s obvious you can help us make Trade Me a better site ;)
Knowing that being around the right people is ow you learn, I was really surprised when you first told me about this last year, but its the reality, so the 2 conclusions I’ve come to are:
1. Untouchable – (I though this more a year ago than i do now) – Some People think its too cool and well known, and trademe is a bit untouchable, where the best of the best hang out
2. People Just don’t get or respect what trademe is – We just don’t have that many successful websites, and a really unsophisticated online space, and I think trademe is just too far ahead on all fronts for people to get what it actually is. There’s a reason trademe has 70% of New Zealands traffic…. stuff all other people here know how to get any.
Look at even some of the comments above, people want to build their own company… with or without the knowledge to do it, there’s very little respect for what it takes, and even less for turning to the people who do.
If I wasn’t already running my own businesses, I’d be scoring myself a desk around the smart cats in that place and learning how its done asap… I’d love to have had this behind me now, I’d be at a completely different level. Its the dream lead-in to being a web entrepreneur or leader in the web, If you want to know how to do it online, then just hang out at trademe and I’m sure it will all start to make sense.