The job market and hiring processes for software engineers are screwed up. One problem is that it's hard to get good information about which candidates and whi

The job market and hiring processes for software engineers are screwed up. One problem is that it's hard to get good information about which candidates and which companies are the ones you want, since the bad ones also pretend to be good. Another complication is that recruiters are often not technical, and the hiring managers in startups are not always experienced, so you have to pass through too highly imperfect filters. I can tell you that, a couple years ago, there was so much demand for Ruby and Python developers that good recruiters wouldn't even take the assignment of looking for them, because they knew it was fruitless. One way to get around the problem of imperfect information is just to build stuff that resembles what you think people need, with the tools they advertise that they are using, and then to post your code on Github. Or commit to an open-source project. Really, the smart companies have scouts watching those projects and if you show competence, reliability and culture fit (being nice) you'll probably get an offer. I used to write about this a bit from the point of view of a technical recruiter, which is not popular on HN, but fwiw, it's good for SWEs to understand the gatekeepers. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141003230509-13992315-how-to-reject-people-and-hire-them-later-a-handbook https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141003230509-13992315-how-t... https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140922170916-13992315-if-you-think-the-job-hunt-sucks-try-recruiting https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140922170916-13992315-if-yo... https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/job-markets-information-problem-chris-nicholson https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/job-markets-information-probl...