Ask HN: Hiring “Jesus lovers” for your tech/science startup
I'm a bit torn on this one. Often times in the hiring process I'll encounter really promising candidates that excite me, but then I open their Twitter/website and their first choice of words to describe themselves are "Jesus lover" or "Follower of Jesus", and it immediately turns me off.
I think religion has its place in the world, but the indications I get from those statements are that this individual ultimately hasn't progressed very far intellectually or challenged their beliefs strongly enough. I fear it is a limiting mindset, no matter how impressive their resume is, and that this will translate on the job as well.
What's your experience with hiring or working with "Jesus lovers"?
49 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 107 ms ] threadOr are you not open to the idea that a "Jesus Lover" could be a person of character and conviction like yourself, but from a different perspective?
Plus, it's one thing to be a Jesus lover. It's completely another to wear it extra-proudly on your technical website/profile.
Yes, it is exactly like the marriage problem and some people still don't divorce.
My biggest suggestion to you is to have some actual conversations with a variety of Christians. I'm willing to bet you have some serious misconceptions about their beliefs.
Your username is "sciencelover". I assume therefore that you are opposing Christianity to science. Let me help you reconsider this position by suggesting you to look at this article listing Christians in science and technology (You might be surprised to see some significative amount of famous scientists like Lavoisier, Pasteur, Newton, James Clerk Maxwell and many many others): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christians_in_science_...
[1] https://www.eeoc.gov/prohibited-employment-policiespractices....
Something that I, as a christian, believe is often misunderstood about religion and science is that they are not opposed to one another. If you talk to many Christians today they will agree that science and religion build off of one another and support each other greatly.
I would recommend the books "God and the Astronomer" and "I don't have enough faith to be an Atheist". Both touch on this combining of science and faith, the first book more so than the latter.
FIDES ET RATIO (Faith and reason) [..] Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves [..]
If I compare the average Youtube atheist with the average Jesuit, I have no doubt who will win a debate about earthly topics and that isn't only due to educational advantages.
This is straight up bigotry.
I've known non-religious people who are utter assholes and I would pay to never work with again. As long as someone isn't trying to convert me in the middle of the work day I couldn't care less who or what they worship.
On the flip side, this sounds like the people who complain when popular tech people talk politics on their twitter. Unfortunately, politics and religion have been around a lot longer than programming/tech and both of those things affect lives greatly.
Good point.
Some were great developers, some were not- the same as any other person, the only thing that would hole me back is someone that tries to force beliefs on me either explicitly or implicitly.
Perl was created by Larry Wall who is a Christian (New Life, Church of the Nazarene).
Ruby was created by Yukihiro Matsumoto who is a Christian (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).
Anyway, many people don't understand what science is about. Do you filter "battery breakthrough enthusiast" and "nutrition fad advocates"?
But besides that I have met some amazing geeks who are religious nuts too. Most don't talk about their religion at work. But some can get annoying.
This one guy would use weird jesus love us language during outage. It drove every focused on troubleshooting mad. Another guy decided he will convert me to Christianity. Loved long discussions with him. I might have turned a bit atheist though. But he started it. Atheism is also a religion in my view.
Another person I worked with turned out be extremely religious and racist on twitter. He was nicest guy at work. But once I saw his Twitter, I just felt repulsed by him especially racism. He quit eventually to start his own bible startup.
These are just extreme examples, most religious people never mentioned religion until I became their friends on facebook and saw they were Jesus lovers
I would look past it and give the candidate a chance to prove themselves in an interview just like any other. If their resume shows a successful career at previous places, it's very likely they are able to separate religion and work thus their religious affiliation had no impact on their work.
Would you feel the same way about someone who believed fervently in the singularity?
I don't think religious prejudice for hiring decisions is excusable in a society that values freedom. You each might have your own world views but professionalism should prevent you each from forcing them on each other.
That attitude is intolerant and toxic.
Would you really not consider a candidate because of their religious or political beliefs regardless of their other job qualifications?
In many places this type of discrimination is illegal.
Really weird to see people admit to blatantly discriminating against people who have a religion.
In the UK what you're describing is unlawful.
> but the indications I get from those statements are that this individual ultimately hasn't progressed very far intellectually or challenged their beliefs strongly enough. I fear it is a limiting mindset,
Can you see that here you're doing exactly what you describe people with a faith of doing? You're not examining nor challenging your beliefs.
You'll say that you haven't met many scientists who also have a faith, but you're not examining why people with faith don't want to tell you about it, and how that factors into your confirmation bias.
I literally made this post to challenge my beliefs.
My best guess: people are really bad at generalising someone's aptitude in one area to another. It's a common joke in academia actually, where obviously and genuinely intelligent people failing to manage basic tasks is common.
So, assuming you are correct in estimating their aptitude towards picking a religion/lack of (I'll say nothing either way), it'll generalise poorly to their aptitude as a developer.
signed: a small-a atheist.
Two of the smartest people I ever came across were devout Christians. One of them is an IMO finalist and was at the top of our year, when I was reading Mathematics at a top UK uni. The other one never failed to be at the top of his year from first grade up till masters level, and is now an emerging big name in a very hot HN related field.
And they might feel the same way about you if you told them your belief that I quoted above.
People are diverse. Even people who describe themselves in a personal account as a Jesus lover will have differences in their beliefs and how they express those. You might not even know about their beliefs in the workplace.
Also, the church today isn't like the church from a hundred years ago. The church accepts that God can work through science. Meaning you can believe in both simultaneously.
On the other hand, I have a coworker who never stop talking about religion to the point where no one wants to work with him and management will never fire him. He basically was a team of one who gets random tasks assigned just to keep him from talking to other people.
The point is, if someone who shouts religion or politics or anything that's divisive at the top of their lunges, I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole.
The profile is Ned Flanders!
Solid character, diligent employee, mostly a joy to manage.
Relative to intellect-- Assuming you value diversity of thought, a differing worldview can be refreshing and helpful.
Which isn't to say that hiring those people is bad, but i suspect OP has been burned by people who can't keep their personal lives personal. Many religions inherently push you to share and spread the religion, so it's not unreasonable that a lot of religious people focus on pushing their agenda.
With that said i don't think a twitter profile is a good indication on whether or not someone would let their religion get in the way of their work and/or work relationships.
The point is not that they love Jesus, it's that they are projecting it in the most publicly visible way.
You are reducing people to binary 0 and 1's. Humans are far advanced and complex creatures than you believe them to be.
What a person's specific religion is isn't interesting, just like their hobbies aren't interesting. They just don't say a lot about the person.
What _might_ be interesting, is if you only have one interest in life. e.g. Bubba Blue (from Forrest Gump) isn't someone I'd want to spend a lot of time with, even though I like shrimp.
Your bias is without basis. Faith is an important component of many people's lives.
I work for a company that is overtly Christian. They advertise it on their web page, they have morning prayer meetings, they have a chapel and a chaplain. They donate to Christian causes and partner with Christian colleges. It's also not a hiring metric (obviously), and it's not used to discriminate against anyone, and many of my very successful co-workers do not profess any religion.
Judge people on their technical ability, not your opinion of their faith. Judge people on the content of their character, not your opinion of who they pray to.