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Apple IT

Apple Looks For Exceptional Engineer With a Secret Job Posting (9to5mac.com) 64

Posted by msmash from the others-need-not-apply dept.
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.
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Apple Looks For Exceptional Engineer With a Secret Job Posting More

Apple Looks For Exceptional Engineer With a Secret Job Posting

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  • Of course it's pulled already (Score:5, Funny)

    by andyring ( 100627 ) on Monday August 21, 2017 @09:44AM (#55056699) Homepage

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

    Oh, and possibly Frist Psot!

  • I'm qualified... (Score:3, Funny)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Monday August 21, 2017 @09:44AM (#55056705)
    So many IT storage closets to clean, so little time between Slashdot comments.
  • 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!

  • "Secret postings" are becoming more common (Score:3)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Monday August 21, 2017 @09:47AM (#55056735)
    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.

    • I get why. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by aussersterne ( 212916 ) on Monday August 21, 2017 @10:27AM (#55056955) Homepage

      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: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        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

    • secret posting can be used to hire 1HB's and get a (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Monday August 21, 2017 @11:08AM (#55057165)

      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)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      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 opport

  • Not a job "YOU" can get (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21, 2017 @09:48AM (#55056737)

    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: (Score:2)

      by bezenek ( 958723 )

      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 (Score:1)

    by 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: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

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

  • 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 (Score:1)

    by 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.

  • 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.

  • H1B1 visa application (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lkcl ( 517947 ) <lkcl@lkcl.net> on Monday August 21, 2017 @10:06AM (#55056857) Homepage

    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...

    • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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? (Score:1)

      by 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: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      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.

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

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

  • Lame (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Been there, done that.

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

  • That is for their CIA/Cloud contract.

  • and trying for good ol' Apple "mystique"

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

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