I find it kind of presumptuous when people on HN purport to know what kinds of places someone "wouldn't want to work at anyway". There's certainly a grain of tr

I find it kind of presumptuous when people on HN purport to know what kinds of places someone "wouldn't want to work at anyway". There's certainly a grain of truth to what you're saying, but often places that have otherwise decent work environments also have a particular flaw that doesn't rule them out as a good place to work. Being able to truly take advantage of the job market requires that workers be: 1. Willing to relocate, the further you're willing to go the wider a net you can cast and the more leverage you have in negotiations. 2. Willing to hold out on many offers, waiting for the one you feel you deserve, even if it takes time to find it. This also gives you a lot of leverage at the negotiation table, and can't really be faked: you actually have to be fine with walking away. Some developers want to stay near their family and existing social network. Some developers have big bills or debt and can't afford to wait for better offers. Some people live in cities where the tech community is super .NET based, or where salaries are way lower than the ones they hear about on HN, or where pretty much all the shops require a suit and tie and don't let you work from home. And some people just want to live a comfortable life focused around things other than work. And that's totally fine. All of this isn't to say you shouldn't be on the lookout for better jobs and workplaces. If you're young, rootless and don't have much debt, you should totally drill the market for all it's worth, and there may be many people like that. And if you're truly miserable at your job, totally look for a new one, and consider whether you can accept temporary uncertainty in return for a better quality of life. However, these are complicated life decisions, and it feels kind of frivolous to unilaterally decide them based on one or a few pieces of criteria. (Sorry for being harsh, this rant has been building steam for a while)