How to get a job at Cheezburger
How do I get a job at icanhascheezeburger?
Well, first you remove that extraneous 'e' from icanhascheezburger. Also, it's generally considered disrespectful to call a company by one of its product names. That's like sending a letter to Cupertino asking for a job at MacBook.
OK, I get it, you like to hear the sound of yourself blogging. How do I get a job at Cheezburger?
You apply on the Cheezburger Job Board. Since you're asking me, I assume you're thinking about applying for the job "ASP.NET/C# Developer", which I am familiar with. Luckily, most of the requirements are right there on the job page, tersely.
Can you explain the requirements?
Experience in ASP.NET MVC
We don't have a lot of time to spend training people how to operate the tools we use. That being said, if you have experience in pretty much any web MVC framework, you will be able to pick up ASP.NET MVC in a day or two.
Experience developing consumer facing web sites
Cheezburger serves hundreds of thousands of requests a minute. Has your code ever faced the Internet... and survived?
Experience with Agile development practices
Some of our requirements are basically keyword matching. This is one of them. Is there any evidence that you have ever attended a scrum? Do you know the difference between pigs and chickens? Have you ever used XP (not from Microsoft)? I need to see that in your application.
A knack for consensus building through teamwork and collaboration
Blah blah buzzword blah blah leadership and communication. Do you have smart ideas? Of course you do, everyone does. The hard part is getting other people to listen to your ideas. How do you lead? Leadership is not the same thing as being a manager. Our intern last summer had some great ideas that took some coaxing, but eventually he was able to convince the team to change a very important process.
Passion for programming and making awesome software
I need you to be excited about your job. If you don't love your craft, I can't get excited about working with you.
A degree in computer science or related field
This is such a weak signal that I don't even bother checking for it when I screen resumes. I am really glad I got my double major in Software Engineering and Computer Science, but I don't think it's the only way people can learn how to make quality software.
Passion for programming and making awesome software
Since this is on our job posting twice, you should take that as a sign that you really need to make your passion clear when you apply.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
My instructions are to read your cover letter and look for spelling and grammar mistakes. Does it look like you know how to communicate well? If you don't have a cover letter, I can't give you this point. Please write a paragraph or two that is not just a prose form of your resume. Tell me a story. You can even use this cover letter to nail the other requirements down, such as motivation or passion for programming.
Okay, that's pretty much it for the obvious requirements. Do you want to hear the secret requirements?
There are secret requirements?
Well, not after I hit "publish". But if you took the time to ask Siri, "how do I get a job at Cheezburger?", you've already proven yourself to be miles ahead of most of your job-seeking cohort. Therefore, I don't mind sharing these secrets with you.
Cheezburgler
I need some proof that you've used our sites and have a general feel for our different areas. Currently we have the Cheezburger Network blogs (such as I Can Has Cheezburger?, Memebase, and FAILBlog), Cheezburger Sites (create your own!) and Know Your Meme. A really easy way to get this point is to create a Cheezburger profile, play around with it, and fill in the box that says "My Cheezburger.com account username is..." It also helps to have at least a passing understanding of some popular Internet memes.
Hard core
Have you done anything that other developers would think of as hard? Some examples: wrote a real program in assembly, a device driver, an operating system, an interpreter. I need to know that you understand von Neumann architecture and recursion.
Motivation/Self-Directed Worker
This point is hard to discern, so you get goldstar.gif stamped on your resume if I see anything that tells me you can do work without somebody reminding you to.
Different
This point isn't asking about your religion, appearance, gender, sexual identity, political preference, veteran status, or other protected class. First, that's illegal. And second, we honestly don't care. What's important is a diversity of experience. This point is in direct competition with the "public facing web sites" requirement, because we also want to hire people who have done things that aren't public facing web sites. Did you write HFT algos for Morgan Stanley? Firmware for a racecar? Robotic control systems? A popular Flash game? Pizza delivery software? These types of experience mean you bring a fresh perspective to our problems.
That sounds like a whole lot of work.
Yeah, but this kind of thought will help you find out what kind of team you want to be a part of. You'll spend a whole lot of time at work - isn't it worth spending an hour tweaking your resume to make sure that time is spent exactly where you want to spend it?
I can has job?
Cute. You get the Cheezburgler point. The job page has everything else you need.