Apple Looks For Exceptional Engineer With a Secret Job Posting (9to5mac.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A hidden Apple website that hosts a job description and invitation to apply for an important position has recently been discovered. The posting describes a role that should be filled by a "talented engineer" who will develop a critical infrastructure component for the company's ecosystem. Discovered late yesterday by ZDNet's Zach Whittaker, the secret posting was found at us-west-1.blobstore.apple.com (now pulled). The posting stated how critical the role is, the scale of the work, key qualifications, and a description of the type of employee Apple is looking for. In the "How Critical?" section Apple says that the engineer will be working on developing infrastructure that will deal with millions of drives, tens of thousands of servers, and Exabytes of data.

Comments

Of course it's pulled already

[andyring]

Because I just applied and was accepted, so none of the rest of you need apply!

Oh, and possibly Frist Psot!

I'm qualified...

[__aaclcg7560]

So many IT storage closets to clean, so little time between Slashdot comments.

Re: I'm qualified...

[Brockmire]

Worst insult ever. Just give up.

I don't think they understand avertising

[Thud457]

So the ideal candidate would have secretly hacked in and found the "secret" job listing?

the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost if you KEEP IT A SECRET!

Re:I don't think they understand avertising

[mwvdlee]

Yeah, no IT-nerd news site is going to report on it if they just remove it all secretively.

Re:I don't think they understand avertising

[Plumpaquatsch]

The first rule for the super secret job at Apple is: Don't talk about the super secret job at Apple!

"Secret postings" are becoming more common

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I think this is at least the third "secret posting" I've heard about recently. I'm also thinking about the:
- "Searches for Python leads to Google job application" thing (https://thehustle.co/the-secret-google-interview-that-landed-me-a-job)
- "IT job postings for Hillary Clinton's campaign in campaign site source code" thing (http://cybertical.com/assets/docs/Hack_All_The_Candidates_Thotcon_2016_Jonathan_Lampe_InfoSec_Institute.pdf)

I worry that these kind of "secret postings" might violate some "equal opportunity" regulations, but they do seem like a clever idea.

Re:"Secret postings" are becoming more common

[tlhIngan]

I think this is at least the third "secret posting" I've heard about recently. I'm also thinking about the:
- "Searches for Python leads to Google job application" thing (https://thehustle.co/the-secret-google-interview-that-landed-me-a-job)
- "IT job postings for Hillary Clinton's campaign in campaign site source code" thing (http://cybertical.com/assets/docs/Hack_All_The_Candidates_Thotcon_2016_Jonathan_Lampe_InfoSec_Institute.pdf)

I worry that these kind of "secret postings" might violate some "equal opportunity" regulations, but they do seem like a clever idea.

No, the reason you have these "secret opportunity" postings is because the job's already been filled. Yes, filled.

This is one of those "hidden job market" things everyone talks about - where there are jobs that aren't posted on any job site, but you have to know people in order to find out about them. The group wanting the person doesn't actually have a job opening posted, but they want to hire the guy. Company policy usually restricts such off-the-record hiring so the group simply posts a narrowly-targeted job posting for the minimum amount of time to fulfill HR requirements of "open competition", where the only intent is to hire that one guy, but as a formality, they have to do an open contest.

The other reason is simple - it gets around anti-poaching agreements. Suppose you want to poach someone but you have an anti-poaching agreement with the company. What you do instead is you post a job opportunity and then notify the person to it on an off-the-record way (e.g., phone call from personal phone, meeting in the park, etc). This way you can hire the guy and if the other company comes calling saying you poached them, you show them the job posting and that the employee voluntarily applied for the job.

(It's why people who believe anti-poaching laws keep employees down are wrong - if you were wanted by some other company, they'd have hired you already. The only thing an anti-poach does is keep the company from directly contacting you - but if they wanted you, they'd make you apply for the job "through the normal channels". And yes, I've been "poached" before despite anti-poaching agreements. If someone wants you, there's always a way around it. Basically, it's not poaching if you approach them for a job and not they approach you, hence the use of off-the-record notification mechanisms).

Not a job "YOU" can get

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who thinks they didn't already have someone lined up for this position and were just semi-posting it for legal reasons has no idea how the job market really works.

Re:Not a job "YOU" can get

[bezenek]

I remember the good old days (1980s) when universities would place ads for faculty positions in something along the lines of the Dubuque Iowa Telegraph Herald. Of course, the candidates who would be visiting campus to give lectures, etc. were already lined up, but you have to follow the rules...

I found the corrupt data in the posting

[Anonymous Coward]

The ASCII art and the entire posting done in ASCII? Awesome, sounds interesting. High performance, lots of data, sounds like a serious challenge? Yes, yes, keep going.

Java 8? One of these things is not like the others...

Re:I found the corrupt data in the posting

[Anonymous Coward]

Java 8 is actually awesome, Grandpa. Now take your pills.

Deleted text from ad

[Provocateur]

no, your name does not have to be Buckaroo, nor do you have to be frontman for a band, either.

Copy of the Apple Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking for a good time Big Boy? Do you LOVE Cocoa Touch ??

Here at Apple, we have LOTHS of round and shiney for your gay.

Come be gay, and go totally bald with us.

We like round and thmoooooth.

ACJ?

[hcs_$reboot]

Why doesn't Apple create a challenge like the GCJ, Google Code Jam. To deal with that amount of data and infrastructure, elaborated algorithms are required ; this is the way (one way) Google finds talented devs.

Re:ACJ?

[gweihir]

Nobody qualified for something like this is interested in doing childish challenges.

H1B1 visa application

[lkcl]

if it's a "secret" and highly specialist skillset it's likely to be for an H1B1 visa application "conform with the advertising in the USA so you can prove there were no applicants suitable" compliance. of course that is now completely messed up as they would be deluged with applicants by now...

Re:H1B1 visa application

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I have handled H1B labor certification postings. Rules requires us to post in the local news paper, in web sites and job search portals from which we have recruited in the past, to all head hunters and "talent acquisition partners" we have used in the recent past etc.

Must respond to all applications. We need to show the Government why each application was rejected.

But I can't rule out some hanky panky on the part of Apple. Its Apple after all.

Re:Good fpr them

[PopeRatzo]

I wouldn't work for Apple even if they paid me to sit at home and write "fuck Apple" all day long.

Hold on now. What are the benefits like?

Secret Job Post Backfire!

[supremebob]

I've seen something like six different variations of this story show up on my news feed from about six different technology blogs at this point.

Something tells me that this job posting plan backfired, and now they are getting thousands of resumes from rookie developers who are nowhere near being qualified for that job.

Puzzle posting?

[MrLogic17]

Given the wording of the posting's opening, this sounds like one of those treasure hunt listings. You know, some ad somewhere has a cryptic nerd or math puzzle that you solve that leads to a web site. Google used to do that a lot. The presumption is that only qualified candidates would even see the final listing.

Re: Puzzle posting?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and then you automatically screen out everyone who has a job and a real life. You might as well hire from a special ed school's autism program.

Re:Puzzle posting?

[swb]

I would like to see long term data on the effectiveness of treasure hunt job posting employees. I'd be surprised if these kinds of applicants didn't have a bunch of quirks that made them really great at very narrow tasks, but awful at many others and possibly not very good at human skills.

Re:Puzzle posting?

[Joe_Dragon]

what about the ones that are just very hard math ones??? How meany math pros like that don't have good jobs?

I get why.

[aussersterne]

We've been hiring for some engineering roles having to do with large-scale data and related systems and we started out by posting on our website, on some major job search databases, and on LinkedIn. We got tons of interest. Tons. And we are not a particularly well-known company and the positions were run of the mill mid-senior level. There was nothing too remarkable about the postings.

We did get a decent group of very good applications, but there was a huge amount of nonsense to go through. Everyone from "right field but low quality and poor qualifications/experience" to "WTF? Why are you even applying for this job? Your degree is in history and your experience is in HR?" ended up in the pile. And we were very specific. A lot of cover letters expressed a great deal of aspiration, rather than a great deal of qualification.

This has always been a thing with candidate seeking, but it seemed significantly worse this time for some reason. The volume was higher, but the ratio was far worse.

I can see why a very well-known, aspirational company might flip the script and make a posting that is discoverable by invitation only for a role that is company-critical.

Re:I get why.

[gweihir]

My take also. They will give the link to some people. Of course, they failed to hide it well, so that says something about the problems Apple has. The other thing is that while I may be qualified for this, I have zero interest to even apply. I have a comfortable position, with a lot of freedom where my talents are appreciated. Many, if not all, people that can do this will be in similar positions. Because this requires a lot of experience and an on-going deep interest in engineering and technology, it will only target very senior people. These do not trawl job-ads, as they have no need to.

Re: I get why.

[Brockmire]

I don't see how this would cut down those people, they'll just tick the box and supply answers like the rest. Also, experience might be from multiple companies to reach the total experience in years.

Re:Why bother

[bluelip]

I agree, don't kick that job, you're well overpaid.

deleted text from ad

[Provocateur]

No, you need not be named Buckaroo, nor do you have to be front man for a rock n roll band.

secret posting can be used to hire 1HB's and get a

[Joe_Dragon]

secret posting can be used to hire 1HB's and get around rules about having to post the job.

We posted the job and got very few USC's and the ones that we did got failed at X stage. (we all ready had an H1B ready to go and just needed make it look like we tried for an USC)

Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Been there, done that.

Exabytes are so 2000. If it's not YoDabytes, just hire some tech school dropout.

Big deal, Apple is hiring for their CIA contract.

[sgt_doom]

That is for their CIA/Cloud contract.

Teplacing the people who quit over the open office

[bferrell]

and trying for good ol' Apple "mystique"

And oddly, they'll find engineers dumb enough to bite

Re:"Secret postings" are also about H1B bs to get

[Joe_Dragon]

Re:"Secret postings" are also about H1B bs as well.
But I have head about jobs that kick an we are not what we are looking for with in minutes of applying to it. Like the posting is really closed but we need to keep it open for X time do to HR BS.

Re:"Critial infrastructure component" ...

[gweihir]

Pretty standard terminology, really.

Re: secret posting can be used to hire 1HB's and g

[Brockmire]

You're posting that you broke the law and you're a piece of shit using your actual user name? Wow. No shame.

Re:NO NAZI FAGGOTS in the requirements.

[Plumpaquatsch]

We are safely ensconced in the Fortune 500. We are everywhere.

So why do we never see any Fortune 500 managers at the Nazi rallies? But only the same kind of people who get abducted by aliens?