A Dirty Little Secret to Hiring Web Developers in Boston
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“I’ll keep you my dirty little secrets.” – All American Rejects
Scandaloussssss. Everyone in Boston seems to be talking about their need for engineering talent: web developers, software engineers, front-end guys, back-end guys. Programmers.
How many times have you heard this over the past month?: “Hey. Do you know where I can find a developer in this town?”
Well my friends. Here is a little secret. A really dirty, raunchy, sauced-up, scandalous secret.
Two words: UMass Amherst
We’re batting 100% from UMass Amherst when it comes to engineering talent. All 4 of our 4 engineers are from UMass Amherst: Mike Miklavic, Justin May, Ansel Stein, and Jared Stenquist. All ranging in age from 23 to 28 years old.
Oh. And…I guess I could also point out the following:
Nikhil Thorat (UMass Amherst 2012) just accepted a job at Google.
Sam Erb (UMass Amherst 2011) has been working at Cisco and loving life.
Tom Petr (UMass Amherst 2010) has been at Microsoft killing it.
Andy Cook and Alex Cook (UMass Amherst 2010 and 2008 respectively) started their own business: Rentabilities.
I could go on and on and on.
When we “need” or are anticipating a need to hire web developer, we go to straight to one school: UMass Amherst. We recruit top talent out of UMass Amherst. Their students are insanely hard working. They know how to grind. They take pride in calling themselves “hackers.” And they are simply a great culture fit for our business. We began our company at UMass and we know many people within the UMass community (deans, professors, students, chancellors, President, etc). UMass Amherst has top notch development talent and top notch students. Blue collar work ethic in a white collar. I love it. And while every other startup and business cofounder is at MIT and Harvard searching for developers, you’ll know where to find me.
NOW. I asked Nikhil, Sam, Tom, and the rest of the guys at my business their thoughts on how to ACTUALLY go about hiring this talent. Tactically. What should you do? Well, here is what they said:
Sam Erb said:
“To find developers, your goal should be to find a way to get your name to every single ECE and CS student at UMass. I would immediately go to engineering career services office and get my offer listed there for ECE students (they will also send it in their email out if you ask). Also I would contact the CS department to have them send out a message as well. I would flyer all of Marcus, Marston, the Computer Science building and Knowles. There are many public boards in those buildings that most students will see daily. If I was looking to hire many people, I would then hold an info session on campus, with food. Sponsoring an ACM/IEEE student chapter event is a great way to get your name out there. Also, giving T-shirts etc. will be free advertisement as many CS/ECE students will wear these around to their classes. Specifically geared toward ECE students, contact M5 (http://www.ecs.umass.edu/
Tom Petr said:
“In my opinion the most effective method is to attend or give a presentation to the ACM / IEEE groups and hang out with people in the undergrad labs (U-Space for CS, M5 for Engineering).”
Nikhil Thorat said:
“So I think the most effective way of getting your name out there as a company recruiting developers is to host events on campus. A ton of companies like Yahoo, TripAdvisor, hold events in the Computer Science building with food etc and talk about their company, and get a ton of smart people to apply. Another thing you should definitely do is talk to professors because they know the talented kids, that might be a little difficult though. Another club you should reach out to is the ACM club on campus, they have a lot of talented developers. And I’m sure you already have the print advertisement down (in the CS building there’s a ton of bulletin boards with fliers). Also, another thing you should consider is getting job postings on the cs umass website (cs.umass.edu).”
There you have it folks. The dirtiest, skankiest, lucious, most intense little secret of the month (and perhaps the quarter).
Recruit tech talent from UMass Amherst. You’ll find phenomenal students, with phenomenal work ethic, who will be phenomenally productive.
And the next time you hear: “”Hey. Do you know where I can find a developer?”… Remember two words: UMass Amherst.
My name is Ryan Durkin. I write so that I will never forget where I came from and what I stand for. I hope that this will motivate young people to realize their potential and become more productive than they ever imagined. That would make me truly happy.
Thanks for the shout out, Ryan!
UMass produces talented students, however, web programming classes were almost non-existent when I was there a year and a half ago. I’m 99% positive that the class Alex and I co-taught (which is now dead) was the only true web programming class that existed in the CS department. I hope they make a shift to incorporate more relevant technologies into the course offering soon.
That being said, the wealth of students at UMass definitely goes untapped. Most of the hackers I know in Boston now originated at UMass and have grown into their own over the past few years.
It seems like to me that the larger startups in Boston are hurting for developers, but not willing to take on motivated and talented programmers and morph them into startup developers. Most companies in Boston want people who have done it before, which limits the pool for hiring.
I would rather have somone who I get along with, is generally smart, and knows the basics of programming good stuff over someone who has years of experience, in grained habits, and less of a positive attitude.
Fo sho! I know that Mike spoke about this as well. The approach of working with students as they get older and better and better and better is a good approach. It’s worked well for our business and is a long term plan for success (in my eyes). I just wish they’d make classes from real world stuff that they could get out to the masses there.
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