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Tech's Strangest Job Listings (protocol.com) 78

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Silicon Valley has a long history of unsubtly repackaging jobs that might otherwise be titled technical support, marketing or office management. But beyond the distinctive euphemisms, the thousands of jobs posted each week by tech behemoths, well-heeled startups and those trying to bridge the valley of death in between often hint at more dramatic economic shifts underway. News outlet Protocol rounded up a half dozen of the most intriguing current job openings in tech.: 1. Facebook: People Research Scientist, Leadership.
2. Joby Aviation: Stress Engineer -- Occupant Seats.
3. Oh My Green: Overnight Happiness Ambassador.
4. DoorDash: Dasher Experience Specialist.
5. Mondelez International: Social Listening & Consumer Foresights Lead.
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Tech's Strangest Job Listings More

Tech's Strangest Job Listings

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  • Bullshit listings (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stormwatch ( 703920 ) <rodrigogirao@h o t m a i l .com> on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @04:09PM (#59716758) Homepage

    By pretending to offer jobs with requirements that fit no one, tech companies find an excuse to tell the government: "See, we just cannot find qualified workers here, please let us bring foreigners who work for peanuts."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jon3k ( 691256 )
      You don't bring in H-1B for customer service jobs that are paying $12 an hour. You outsource those to India. H-1B make on average $80k per year and we only bring somewhere between 100-150k into the US per year. This is just people trying to coax children into awful service jobs by giving them "fun" sounding names.

      • Re:Bullshit listings (Score:4, Interesting)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @08:37PM (#59717742)

        giving them "fun" sounding names.

        Where I work, everyone can pick their own job title, on the theory that giving people fancy titles is cheaper than giving them raises.

        One of the workers in our warehouse said she wanted her title to be "Supreme Commander". Sure enough, that is what was printed on her company business cards.

        • I wish I'd worked for a company like that back when I was doing phone tech support. I'd have loved to have business cards with a job title of BOFH.
          • I was in a budget meeting at the college I worked for a few years ago. The CFO showed us slides from another college that had an Executive VP of Fun. Alas, the budget revealed that we were NOT getting one.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by lars5 ( 69333 )

          Hand to God, my business cards at a previous job stated my position as "Pro from Dover."

      • Job Title: Badge and Rewards Ringmaster
        Duties: Come up with exciting sounding names for tediously boring or completely made up tasks.

    • I'm sure almost anyone can fit that DoorDash position. But they should call it instead something like "professional corporate monkeyboy that works for peanuts and ruins their car".
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Or low wages. Can't look at market rates if the are no other jobs to compare to.

  • Dyson: Scrum Master. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yeah, not that wierd for someone in tech.

  • Strangest, intriguing? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @04:12PM (#59716776)

    1. Facebook: People Research Scientist, Leadership.
    MBA with a PHD in Psychology

    2. Joby Aviation: Stress Engineer -- Occupant Seats.
    Fat "Person"

    3. Oh My Green: Overnight Happiness Ambassador.
    Hand jobs for everyone. Or more for some extra cash

    4. DoorDash: Dasher Experience Specialist.
    Driver?

    5. Mondelez International: Social Listening & Consumer Foresights Lead.
    Listening, a far underappreciated degree

    6. Dyson: Scrum Master.
    This is kinda neither strange or intriguing.

    • You stole my joke about Overnight Happiness Ambassador being the new name for "escort". :-(

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nadass ( 3963991 )

      2. Joby Aviation: Stress Engineer -- Occupant Seats. Fat "Person"

      Why is person in quotation marks? Are they not human?! HAHAHA

    • Also notice, none of these are "tech" jobs. I'm really tired of everyone assuming that if a company owns at least one computer and has a web site that it must be a tech company, and all workers who work for it are tech workers.

      • if a company owns at least one computer and has a web site that it must be a tech company,

        That's the Uber taxi company for ya. They have software so they're a tech company, not a taxi company.

    • 2. Joby Aviation: Stress Engineer -- Occupant Seats.
      Fat "Person"

      Of course not. It's a mechanical engineer with experience in mechanical stress calculations. His job will be to minimize the weight of the passenger seats.

      • He could make big money if he could minimize the weight of the passengers' seats, a lot of people would pay well to have less of an ass with little effort.

        Of course, if he could somehow minimize the weight of the passenger, he's set for life.

  • Chief Diveristy Officer [wikipedia.org] is an actual job title, with salary range $150K - 250K.

    • Re:Chief Diveristy Officer (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @04:19PM (#59716816)

      Chief Diveristy Officer [wikipedia.org] is an actual job title, with salary range $150K - 250K.

      Yeah, but if you have a technical background, are over 30, male, straight, or white, you can forget about this job.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pascoea ( 968200 )
      And? Is that somehow more odd of a title than say a Chief Human Resources Officer? Or Chief Information Office?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sinij ( 911942 )
        Yes, I would be equally surprised to discover that Chief Religion Officer or Chief Sexlife Officer is a thing. All positions either make money or reduce costs. Clearly Chief Diversity Officer doesn't make money for the company, so what costs do they reduce that HR or legal do not already do?

        • They reduce the salary costs of every other department, by making employees more efficient for their salary. It's not much different from the idea that IT departments make other areas more efficient.

          Funny thing... people tend to be do better work when they feel they're respected. Management can achieve that either by actually respecting them, or by dumping salary money on the employees and hoping it buys productivity.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Pascoea ( 968200 )

          ...that HR or legal do not already do?

          Same reason that many companies have both a Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer. They both handle "IT stuff", but from different viewpoints.

          Clearly Chief Diversity Officer doesn't make money for the company, so what costs do they reduce...

          If you have a company that provides products or services to a diverse set of customers, wouldn't it make sense to have someone whose job it is to make sure your customers are well represented within your company? Having products designed for the largest audience seems to be the kind of thing that would increase revenue, don't you think?

      • Re:Chief Diveristy Officer (Score:4, Interesting)

        by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @04:42PM (#59716922)

        There there, he is just mad that his lack of skills, and unwillingness to learn and work with people, doesn't get him a high paying job.
        And companies are trying to find a way to diversify their staff for a wide range of reasons.
        * You want to hire the best of the best, but if your company excludes people or seemingly excludes people, then a population who contain some of the best of best will not apply.

        * Diversity brings new ideas and approaches to problems. People who grow up in different cultures and sub cultures, come in with a different set of life tools to dealing with problems.

        * Helps relate better with an expanded customer base

        * The fact that White Males are no longer over 50% of the workforce. and your company needs employees, and will need them in the future.

        * Good PR ...

        In short diversity is actually good business to help bring in the money, and get better staff, especially when diversity is managed well (vs poorly where they hire a token person to fill the job).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Pascoea ( 968200 )

          (vs poorly where they hire a token person to fill the job).

          Of the likely arguments against diversity, this is one that holds water. The rest of your points, spot on.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by rtb61 ( 674572 )

            For diversity hire, it is all about placing more diverse people in less critical jobs, where performance requirements are limited and getting the best people for critical jobs whilst still looking diverse but not actually being diverse.

          • Exactly. I have had to sit through meetings where management bemoans the lack of female applicants to an open job posting for a technical position. We literally had 100 people apply for a position, and 5 of those were woman. 4 of them were immediately eliminated by not fulfilling the base requirements of the position.
            The one remaining woman literally had half the management staff ready to hire her on the spot, until she loudly declared in an interview that "Moving computers is the job of movers, and not so

        • * You want to hire the best of the best, but if your company excludes people or seemingly excludes people, then a population who contain some of the best of best will not apply.

          There is no need to exclude anyone, but there is also no need to hire based on race, gender or anything other than qualification. You cannot at one hand ask to hire the best of the best and on the other hand hire based on anything but merit.

          * Diversity brings new ideas and approaches to problems. People who grow up in different cultures and sub cultures, come in with a different set of life tools to dealing with problems.

          You are assuming that other cultures' approaches to a problem are better. Personally, I don't think that the Arab approach to feminism is a good one. I don't really think that stoning women is something we should try to see if it makes the "problem" go away...

          * Helps relate better with an expanded customer base

          That depend

      • Quite. I can see the need for Human Resources. I can see why information is an asset.

        Care to point out how to monetize diversity?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by balbeir ( 557475 )
      Well, it's an underwater job. Those are dangerous. They should pay well
  • Sounds like trying to sell crap jobs with silly titles, TBH.

  • For example: "Social Listening & Consumer Foresights Lead."
    Is this a customer support job, or is it a high end data analytics job finding trends in public opinion?

    Put this title on your resume, for a data analytics job, watch it be skipped unless the hiring company is desperate.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      My favorite has always been 'Technology Evangelist'.

      • That's just a fancy way of saying "paid fanboy" without having astroturfing as a part of the job requirements. I'm personally impartial to anything that has "guru" included in the title.

  • These are not tech jobs (Score:4, Informative)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @04:55PM (#59716968) Homepage

    These are not tech jobs. They aren't even tech companies. Even the article says "...In the category of non-tech companies hiring like tech companies..." so it admits these aren't tech companies. It's like you throw "tech" into the headline and suddenly people read it?

    Not every company with an app or a web site is a "tech" company. Just like how, 30 years ago, buying a computer didn't make it a "tech" company.

    • True, Thank you!

      However, and perhaps interestingly, being a dad and owning my own car *does* make me a taxi service...

    • In fact, neither did *not* buying a computer make it a non-tech company.

    • How exactly is engineering airplane seats not a tech job? And what exactly is so strange about it?
      I mean, right from the job description:

      Review seat design CAD data.
      Set up models for static, quasi-static, and buckling simulations using commercial FEA software.
      Generate interface loads for airframe team.
      Perform FEA on detail parts and assemblies to verify compliance to occupant safety requirements.
      Document design validation work.
      Provide status and schedule updates to lead and other appropriate entities on a r

  • Overnight Happiness Ambassador?! (Score:3)

    by NicknameUnavailable ( 4134147 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @05:14PM (#59717080)
    Why can't there be more forward-thinking corporations providing hookers for employees?
  • Most of those aren't tech jobs. Most of them are HR and customer service jobs.
  • Funny naming titles work as a cover to justify vague job expectations that lead to you working 2 jobs and 60+ hours a week all so corporate can save some money.

  • On one hand you could dismiss this as some HR new graduate creating "hip, edgy" new job titles, especially if all these companies were high-flying second dotcom bubble unicorns. Established non-tech companies though? Guaranteed they purchased the Digital Transformation Platinum Package from McKinsey or Accenture or similar...and changing everyone's job title is one of the first steps, followed by stuffing everyone inside the same open office space and forcing them to stare at each other.

    On the other...could

  • If you told me before graduation that I could have a career as a "happiness ambassador", I would have walked right the F out and started a life of crime.

  • "Diversity Manager" (Score:3)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @06:40PM (#59717408) Journal

    ...literally, a job based on the premise that a person's skin color, gender, sexual orientation, etc all *matter*.

    Ironically the job is championed by people who insist that none of those things matter, nor should even be considered in workplace decisions.

  • I was once in a moderately small company. The owner gave our very pretty receptionist business cards with the title "Director of First Impressions".

  • Whichever clueless dumbass put that list together is obviously unacquainted with how real things are designed. If you sit on a seat that has not been correctly designed it may break and hurt you. if you install seats that are strong enough but haven't been properly designed, you are throwing payload away.

    • Since when do airlines care whether their seats break and hurt you, as long as they can stuff more people into the plane?

      • There are FAA regulations for passenger seating on airlines and can't be installed without proper certification. If they are not compliant, the plane will be grounded until airworthiness is provided. Airlines themselves are typically not responsible for the certification, it's the companies designing and manufacturing the seats that do the testing and certification. One of the seat tests is a 16g forward load carried out on a sled. 180lb*16g = 2880lbf per person with a large moment that has to be reacted at

  • I met someone at an IEEE 802.11 (later known as WiFi) standards meeting back in 1993 or so, and she was in charge of the radio protocols for the project at Apple, and she gave herself the perfect title "Air Traffic Controller."

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