"...just because they work at Amazon, LinkedIn, Etsy or Gilt Groupe."

What are you trying to say about the engineers at those companies?

That they are from companies that were not represented in the first group.

That we'd love to have them!

I've been reading HN for a long time but I never registed since I never felt the need to comment, until now.

What a bunch of navel gazing, elitist douchebags you are. Do you think actually think working a Zynga or Facebook makes you a good dev. Get a grip. In any sufficiently large set of individuals you will have everything from poseur to star. Facebook, Zynga and others are not immnune to this like you would have us believe.

I was around during the previous tech bubble. Paid my dues in the trenches and earned my stripes. The last startup I was at I was a team lead. It is still around and growing but I guess since I didn't go a fancy school I don't exist. That's ok, keep promoting the hiring of greenhorns who think everything they dream up is new and then proceed to reinvent the wheel. Education does not make you smart, just educated.

BTW: In case your wondering. I'm happily employed making 6 figures for less hours than your screened employers would expect.

Epic. Fail.

I think you're seriously missing the point. The point is not "employees for company X are all awesome!", but rather "company X is a good filter". This is no different than saying "a CS degree is a good filter"; it's not the be-all end-all, but it's a nice initial filter.

(Note: I have neither a CS degree (or even a high school diploma) nor have I worked for any of the companies mentioned.)

Perhaps I was a bit harsh (I don't feel bad), but I don't think I'm missing the point. They are attempting to create an artificial scarcity that promotes their idea of what a good dev is. It is elitist.

"They are attempting to create an artificial scarcity that promotes their idea of what a good dev is."

No. They are catering to a group of people who specifically care about pedigree. They are trying to replace the role of the recruiters who do the same thing.

Yeah, but this 'pedigree' being thrown around in these comments is starting to look more and more like blatant discrimination, which was something the recruiters hide pretty well.

"which was something the recruiters hide pretty well."

The recruiters actively sell the idea that pedigree matters.

I agree. I have worked now 20+ years in finance / technology - get this - before Google and Zynga and pretty much all of your "entrance" companies existed. Since 1999 I have commanded a high salary (but not willing to disclose here) so I would be very interested in seeing if there was any demand for people with skills like mine. Oh well. Let's hope somebody else has the same idea and makes it less elitist - let's be honest - the concept is not very difficult to copy is it ??!

Jumping on this, all of the companies listed are consumer facing at their core product.

I don't think they actually are "elitist douchebags". I think they needed a filter and executed, in that dimension, poorly. I'm sure they'll get better over time. They had to come up with a filter and didn't focus on how it would come across.

I would have partnered with a company that already had peoples' code and some experience using it to find who the good coders are. My recruiting experiences with coding-test sites were not very positive (as with dating, the sites were fine, it's the needle-haystack problem because there were few good ones and they got lots of attention) but Kaggle (which focuses on data science) might have greener pastures.

I just applied and have formerly worked at the aforementioned companies. Does that count?

Yes.