Interesting software job at a cool new startup

I rarely bump into job listings that are good enough to blog about — in fact, this is the very first — but my friend and colleague Dave McClure, formerly with Paypal, helped launch a very interesting new Internet company called Simply Hired and they’re looking for some world-class search geeks to join their Silicon Valley venture.
You can read the job listing at LinkedIn (and, yes, I find it interesting that a company focused on job search uses LinkedIn as its own classified listing spot when it has the pick of almost any venue online) or you can read it here.
But before we get there, you’ll enjoy the note that Dave sent me about this position, I’m sure…


“Know any Super Search Geeks? You know, the ones who wear the broken glasses with tape in the middle, and the ‘S’ on his/her chest? Yep, that’s who we’re looking for. Kal-el. Shazam. UnderDog. If you know a special Clark Kent who’s got serious search chops, and might be interested in a senior architect role with an about-to-blowup-big-like-chia-pets vertical search startup, send ’em our way. see info below, and also check out our site www.simplyhired.com — the world’s largest search engine for jobs. (and silly error messages) ps – we will provide the sunglasses.”
Want to talk with Dave, Peter Weck (the hiring manager) or find out more about Simply Hired? Go to LinkedIn and click on “Apply now”.

Join a stellar management team and get in on the ground floor of its next major success. As our Senior Search Technology Software Engineer, you’ll drive development of a new, world class search architecture. In this high impact role, you’ll contribute directly to our success, and the elegance of your ingeniously devised search engine algorithms will be spoken of in hushed tones throughout the search industry. This is a golden opportunity for you to create commercial applications and have your work be used by some of the world’s most recognized companies. Participate in the rapidly evolving science, art and technology of extracting structured content from text. A generous compensation package, including an equity stake, plus a collaborative, tier-one management team are two more reasons to climb aboard this bold new enterprise.
The startup, Simply Hired, is creating a 3rd generation vertical job search application. The beta version of the product, http://www.simplyhired.com, launched in March of this year. We’re founded by the former founders of AtWeb, the company the pioneered web site optimization with their Website Garage product. AtWeb was acquired by Netscape at the end of 1998. We offer you another excellent opportunity with an early stage organization.
As our Senior Search Technology SW Engineer in Mountain View, California, your first challenges will be to architect the next version of our search infrastructure, perform analysis on the data sets and to design ranking and relevancy algorithms. You’ll use Lucene and other open source libraries in your implementation. As an architect we’ll call on your exceptional theoretical skills in search theory, natural language processing, text mining and machine learning. You’ll conceptualize, perform, and critique statistical analyses on our data sets from a Bayesian perspective. Your ultimate charter is to design and implement true world class hybrid full-text and fielded search technology that will set apart Simply Hired in helping candidates find the ideal job. You’ll leverage solid Java programming skills to make it a practical, usable tool and a finished product fit for commercial use. We’re after an alchemic mixture of skills, since we’re exploring the leading edge of the unknown, but that’s always been the path for those who dream of turning lead into gold.

No, I’m not planning on posting tons of job listings to my site — indeed, that’s the entire purpose behind Simply Hired in the first place — but if you have a world-class opportunity for just the right entrepreneurial person, I’m always interested in hearing about it!

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