While we think it’s valuable for everyone, should you be the kind of sicko inexplicably drawn to exactly the kind of nasty problems that Dave describes, consider joining us — there is more systems software in the large to be done at Oxide!
At risk of being a bit offtopic: I applied twice to Oxide and twice got rejected 60 days after applying due to there being too many applicants, after which the job ad continued to stay online. It's a bummer because the things Oxide is working on sound really cool :<
Very late to this thread, but I wanted to clarify: the note that you received is telling you that we are grossly oversubscribed for the position for which you applied -- which is absolutely true. And it means that our level of selectivity is very, very high -- there are plenty of good (or even very good!) people that we will not advance into conversations at Oxide.
Re-applying for the position because it is still open doesn't buy you anything: we don't use any automatic pre-filtering (and most roles don't see much in the way of LLM-generated content to begin with), and we always look back at your previous materials (and our previous reviews of those materials) and compare that to the updated materials.
I understand that it's disappointing news, and apologies if our note to you was misleading.
Ah, that clears things up a bit; thanks. I think my only suggestion in this case would be to perhaps make that a bit more clear in the rejection Email, as the current phrasing makes it sound more like a rejection as a result of a "timeout" (i.e. a candidate simply not being reviewed within a time period) of sorts rather than "We did look at your application, but you didn't make it into the top N".
The obvious reason for this is that Oxide is getting a bit (or a lot, I don't know) dysfunctional, with the left hand not knowing what the right is doing, or, in this case not being able to do (process all applications).
But there could also be non-obvious reasons. Off the top of my head I can think of two:
They are getting so many applications, most of which are AI-generated spam, that they have to do some automated pre-filtering. Since it's not perfect and they likely filter out real applications, they decided to reply with something less aggravating than "we think your application is spam".
The real reason is too much of a hot potato to state explicitly so they use something generic as a reply.
There is probably not much you can do if it's (2). If it's (1), you could try to get past this filter somehow. A personal reference would likely help.
I can’t comment on specific people’s application situations, but we don’t do pre-filtering, and we don’t do personal references. I’m not sure any place really generally gives more than a generic “not moving forward at this time” or similar message, but I’ve also never been involved in sending out rejection letters directly.
We do have some concern/thoughts about LLMs but that’s not the sort of action we’d take about it, at least at the moment.
The reason is what we stated: we have many more applicants than we have positions. It is (bluntly) very, very hard to get a job at Oxide. When someone applies to Oxide who has applied in the past (and it doesn't matter how distantly in the past), we will look at their previous materials, our previous written evaluation of their materials, and their current materials. People re-applying because they think that they need to "get past AI" are in fact having the opposite effect: they are vindicating our earlier judgement that they are not a fit for Oxide.
This all makes sense but I am surprised neither you nor Steve see the contradiction between the reply the applicant got and the state of the position on your website. The way I read it, the applicant was told that their submission could not be evaluated because of the amount of submissions received. At the same time they see the position still being advertised which means you are still seeking submissions, even though you cannot evaluate the ones you have already received.
Whenever I see anything Oxide, I have to wonder who the intended customer base is. I can't imagine the market for artisanal EC2 in a box is very big. They're pretty shy about who's buying it, but I'm quite curious.
They mention a number of times that some of their customers require an updating mechanism that works across an air gap. Given the desire for an air gap, I think we can make some pretty good guesses about who are a few of their customers.
Watching this, I'm impressed that they've made it work so long with this kind of bare-bones upgrade system. I might be biased because so much of my experience is with field-upgraded devices like phones and IoT, and they're probably right that this is a type of software process that isn't common in the web world, but I thought it was SOP to have things like self-upgrading firmware (using twice as much flash) and staged upgrade plans. This is not a criticism -- I like the open discussion of how it works now and where they're going, which is so rare in that world.
No criticism taken, it surely is SOP, but when you're a brand new company, you can find individual customers at the start who are okay with things being a little more manual at the start. It's been a high priority for a long time, because it is table stakes for many, many people. And rightfully so!
At risk of being a bit offtopic: I applied twice to Oxide and twice got rejected 60 days after applying due to there being too many applicants, after which the job ad continued to stay online. It's a bummer because the things Oxide is working on sound really cool :<
Very late to this thread, but I wanted to clarify: the note that you received is telling you that we are grossly oversubscribed for the position for which you applied -- which is absolutely true. And it means that our level of selectivity is very, very high -- there are plenty of good (or even very good!) people that we will not advance into conversations at Oxide.
Re-applying for the position because it is still open doesn't buy you anything: we don't use any automatic pre-filtering (and most roles don't see much in the way of LLM-generated content to begin with), and we always look back at your previous materials (and our previous reviews of those materials) and compare that to the updated materials.
I understand that it's disappointing news, and apologies if our note to you was misleading.
Ah, that clears things up a bit; thanks. I think my only suggestion in this case would be to perhaps make that a bit more clear in the rejection Email, as the current phrasing makes it sound more like a rejection as a result of a "timeout" (i.e. a candidate simply not being reviewed within a time period) of sorts rather than "We did look at your application, but you didn't make it into the top N".
[Comment removed by author]
The obvious reason for this is that Oxide is getting a bit (or a lot, I don't know) dysfunctional, with the left hand not knowing what the right is doing, or, in this case not being able to do (process all applications).
But there could also be non-obvious reasons. Off the top of my head I can think of two:
They are getting so many applications, most of which are AI-generated spam, that they have to do some automated pre-filtering. Since it's not perfect and they likely filter out real applications, they decided to reply with something less aggravating than "we think your application is spam".
The real reason is too much of a hot potato to state explicitly so they use something generic as a reply.
There is probably not much you can do if it's (2). If it's (1), you could try to get past this filter somehow. A personal reference would likely help.
I can’t comment on specific people’s application situations, but we don’t do pre-filtering, and we don’t do personal references. I’m not sure any place really generally gives more than a generic “not moving forward at this time” or similar message, but I’ve also never been involved in sending out rejection letters directly.
We do have some concern/thoughts about LLMs but that’s not the sort of action we’d take about it, at least at the moment.
The reason is what we stated: we have many more applicants than we have positions. It is (bluntly) very, very hard to get a job at Oxide. When someone applies to Oxide who has applied in the past (and it doesn't matter how distantly in the past), we will look at their previous materials, our previous written evaluation of their materials, and their current materials. People re-applying because they think that they need to "get past AI" are in fact having the opposite effect: they are vindicating our earlier judgement that they are not a fit for Oxide.
This all makes sense but I am surprised neither you nor Steve see the contradiction between the reply the applicant got and the state of the position on your website. The way I read it, the applicant was told that their submission could not be evaluated because of the amount of submissions received. At the same time they see the position still being advertised which means you are still seeking submissions, even though you cannot evaluate the ones you have already received.
[Comment removed by author]
Whenever I see anything Oxide, I have to wonder who the intended customer base is. I can't imagine the market for artisanal EC2 in a box is very big. They're pretty shy about who's buying it, but I'm quite curious.
We talk about customers when we can! For example, https://oxide.computer/blog/oxide-computer-company-and-lawrence-livermore-national-laboratory .
The answer boils down to “government, finance, Fortune 1000” being three huge verticals, though by no means are things exclusive to that.
All I can tell is that in telecoms it's also expected from the big vendors. Been on both sides of that.
They mention a number of times that some of their customers require an updating mechanism that works across an air gap. Given the desire for an air gap, I think we can make some pretty good guesses about who are a few of their customers.
Watching this, I'm impressed that they've made it work so long with this kind of bare-bones upgrade system. I might be biased because so much of my experience is with field-upgraded devices like phones and IoT, and they're probably right that this is a type of software process that isn't common in the web world, but I thought it was SOP to have things like self-upgrading firmware (using twice as much flash) and staged upgrade plans. This is not a criticism -- I like the open discussion of how it works now and where they're going, which is so rare in that world.
No criticism taken, it surely is SOP, but when you're a brand new company, you can find individual customers at the start who are okay with things being a little more manual at the start. It's been a high priority for a long time, because it is table stakes for many, many people. And rightfully so!