8 ms·

Ask HN: What do you care about the most in a tech job post?

58 points by mrburton 9y ago

When I look at job posts, I really care about what technology is being used, what would my role be on the team and project, and more. What things do you look for in a technical job post?

Winterflow3r 9y ago
1. What problem is the company/team trying to solve? 2. What are the special challenges? For example, ultra low latency or scalability or porting a monolith to microservices 3. Technology stack (does it match with my experience? what can I learn? hotter and newer not always better imho) 4. The language used in the post After this, I usually try to find out as much as I can about the company. It helps a lot if the company has an engineering/team blog.
itamarst 9y ago
Beyond the usual things, that you and others mention, like technical interest and what the company's goal is and so on: does the company provide a sane workweek? Sometimes they very clearly don't ("70-hour weeks" in particularly awful case). Other times they definitely do. Most of the time it's very hard to tell, though, which is a shame. There are lots of other programmers who care about this besides me (my rant about 70-hour workweek got 120,000 page views - https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/09/18/when-startups-pay-less/ https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/09/18/when-startups-pay-le...). If your company is hiring, provides a sane workweek, and you'd like some ideas on how to promote your hiring effots - ping me: itamar@codewithoutrules.com.
- mrburton 9y ago
  I came across this post on flipbook the other day :)
lucb1e 9y ago
In the job post, I want to know what is expected of me. What am I going to be doing? What languages/technologies am I supposed to know? When I'm interested in a post, I'll look at the company website to get a feel for it. In the job posting they always describe how open and informal the culture is, how great the atmosphere is, etc. etc. The website often tells me what kind of company it really is. If that's alright I'll apply and expect further explanation about both the company and my position in interviews (since interviews are two-way), while I also fill them in on my qualifications.
apexkid 9y ago
When i am spending 8 - 10 hours of time everyday at one place, the most i care is that the organization/team builds an environment that feels comfortable. A place where everyone cares genuinely about each other and is ready to help. I maybe crazy, but something i look for in a job role is trust within the team.
alex_duf 9y ago
- work / life balance - technology used - ethics of the company (not making weapons, not spying etc.)
ljoshua 9y ago
At the risk of sounding shallow, the salary (and NOT "competitive rates" or "DOE"). I don't want to waste my time or a potential employer's if expectations won't line up. It's not, of course, the only thing I care about, but far too few postings offer this level of transparency. Love the other ideas of work week length and problem to be solved as well.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  I agree. I have a lot of respect for companies that post a clear range (it has to be better than just "80000-150000 depending on experience"). It's also nice if they describe what they actually work on and not just some buzzwords. After suffering a cube farm for the last years I also like companies who have offices or are remote. Decent vacation is also appreciated.
- YPCrumble 9y ago
  That's not shallow at all. If a job doesn't list an attractive salary it's a clear indication it's not a good job.
  - eradicatethots 9y ago
    Most jobs don’t list salaries lol
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      If your org doesn't list a salary, I'll go looking on Glassdoor or this crowdsourced spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a1Df6dg2Pby1UoNlZU2l0FEykKsQKttu7O6q7iQd2bU/htmlview?usp=sharing&sle=true https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a1Df6dg2Pby1UoNlZU2l... Or I'll ask former employees sourced from their Linkedin profiles. Fight information asymmetry whenever possible.
      - 9y ago
danharaj 9y ago
I'm chronically ill so I value most of all flexible work hours and an understanding that there will be periods of time ranging from days to weeks to months where I'm derelict as an engineer.
- sjroot 9y ago
  > days to weeks to months where I’m derelict as a software engineer. Months? I don’t know anything about your situation, but how could you expect an employer to think that this is worth their resources?
  - Mz 9y ago
    Probably a poor framing. Maybe think of it as "No, I will not be working overtime on a regular basis and running flat out all the time. I may be able to do stuff like that occasionally, but I just can't sustain it for long periods." I am also chronically ill. I had a job at a Fortune 500 company at one time. People there were aware I was desperately poor because I was walking to work and everyone was giving me rides. Some folks knew this was because of my medical condition. The company didn't do shit all for me (other than all the offers of rides). Meanwhile, someone who made a lot more money than me had a death in the family and they did fundraisers so she could attend both the memorial service in one state and the actual funeral in another. They also routinely did fund raisers for people with a health crisis or a family member with a health crisis. I was there over five years. Nothing like that was ever done for me. It is part of why I left. ("Fuck you, too.") Yes, I have special needs. No, my special needs are not greater than that of other employees who were getting the support I lacked. I now do freelance work so I can work at my own pace. I have carefully arranged my life in that regard. But, really, I don't think I am more of a special snowflake than other people with jobs. But, for whatever reason, people think my needs are unreasonable, while they bend over backwards to take care of other people who, in some cases, have far less serious problems. I get that a lot, in all kinds of ways. I don't really understand why. It is possible that prejudice is an element. Flexible work and remote work is a potential boon for people with chronic health issues. There are a lot of people with such issues. As life expectancy increases and more people survive cancer, etc, we are going to see more people who can work, need to work and want to work, but they need to do it part time, flexibly and/or remotely.
steev 9y ago
1. Type of problems I'd be working on 2. Whether or not the company allows remote workers 3. Salary range
jMyles 9y ago
There's one filter that every single human has: ethics. Not everyone's philosophy is the same; there are missions that I might find detestable and you might not. But for goodness sake, please don't make me go through the process of filling out a long form, writing a cover-letter, and jumping on a 60 minute phone call before you tell me that you're building something to help the government kill people. Like, seriously, put that right at the top and save everybody's time.
- taway_1212 9y ago
  Bakers make bread. Soldiers eat bread to have energy to kill people. Do bakers help government kill people?
  - jMyles 9y ago
    Some people refuse to participate in any meaningful way to the current economic human web. It seems that this generally drives these people to live a life of isolation (usually in the forests of the PNW or SE). I know a few such people, but I'm not convinced that their critique is working out the way they expected. So your point is sound: it's up to each of us to decide how to participate and where to draw various lines.
fluxsauce 9y ago
Is this a team that I want to spend more awake time with than my family? Do I have any moral objections to the way they conduct business? Will I be doing something that's interesting? Would I want to tell others about what I do?
cgb223 9y ago
Having just been through the job hunting process, it’s gotta be the speed at which I can apply. If it takes me more than 2 minutes to apply for your position, I’m going to skip the whole thing If you make me retype everything that’s on my resume, I’m going to pass My ideal application is attach resume, put basic info like Email and name if not automatically scraped and submit
- bluedino 9y ago
  >> If it takes me more than 2 minutes to apply for your position, I’m going to skip the whole thing This is such a pain, it’s 2017 and I have job sites who want a Word document resume, plain text resume, then in the middle of filling out a web form with my work history I just closed the browser window because I don’t think I really wanted to work at a place like that anyway.
  - ju-st 9y ago
    My favourite are job sites where you have to create an account and the account has ridiculous minimum password requirements. Example: "Your password must be at least eight characters long and must include at least one letter (A–Z, a–z), one digit (0–9) and one special character (e.g., !"§$%)."
    - avip 9y ago
      That's downright a scam. I've applied once to a JPMorgan dev team. The verbose application process required me to "register" to some "applicants network". Alas, the registration form had the infamous "I accept the terms of service AND allow you to send spam to the email address you've just forced me to provide" bundled checkbox. Granted that was the end of my attempts to work there.
    - bostik 9y ago
      Sounds like any $BIGCORP that outsources their application flow to Taleo.
- dougmccune 9y ago
GoToRO 9y ago
Location: where is the office exactly. Picture with my desk, chair and station. Salary range. All the rest.
- ken 9y ago
  > Picture with my desk, chair and station. This would save me so much time. I can't count the number of postings I've seen on "StackOverflow Careers" that brag about their Joel Test score (quiet working conditions, check!), but when I dig deeper I find a photo of a giant open floor plan. I've even seen hiring videos where someone bragged about what a great place it was to get work done, and right behind the interviewee is a foosball/ping-pong table, and just on the other side you can see some poor programmer with headphones trying to block it all out. The words "quiet working conditions" must mean something else to hiring teams these days, but no matter. Show a picture of my desk, and there's no ambiguity.
henrik_w 9y ago
For me, it's working with really good colleagues. Quite hard to find out before starting if they are, but if they are already there, the company is likely good, and I will probably learn a lot.
deleted 9y ago
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mtrimpe 9y ago
Just tell me what you want... which is usually what you want to achieve by hiring me. What are the key differentiators you’re looking for? If you had to explain your search to a recruiter... what would your elevator pitch version be? Just tell me that. For one of my last jobs it would’ve been this for example: “You need to be able to explain/guide our customers on how to build internet banking sites using our product and keep them happy in the process. Lots of traveling involved.”
MechEStudent 9y ago
I look at the Joel score. It is simple, and tells me if they are built around making good software or bureaucracy. It they can't make a decent Joel score, or justify why they don't have it, then you are going to spend more of your time attending mandatory meetings than actually writing code. I have come to believe that, in poor quality companies, HR is peopled by gremlins. If the person writing the post gets something really technically bad, and doesn't know it, then I don't want to work there. It means that I am going to be interviewed (and selected) by trolls, instead of technical folks. It means that if I can tell a funny joke, or look cute, then that is going to overwhelm the weight of any technical ability they can discern. It means that half my coworkers are idiots, so when they figure out I can do what they talk about, I'm going to be gamed, pressured, blackmailed, and pushed to do half of everybody's work. If I wanted to do it ALL myself, and get none of the credit, rewards, remuneration, advancement, or job security, then I would start my own company. I look for pointy-haired-boss jargon (think Dilbert). I hate those folks. They usually don't know anything but how to exploit others for their own professional gain. It doesn't take much looking around to see how the company is doing. They like to hire newbies right before a layoff. I look at company performance, and if it looks like they are about to lay a ton of folks off, I don't want to play there. They are laying people off because of previous failures to hire the right people. If the folks getting the axe aren't including the upper levels of HR, then the source of failures to hire, manage, retain, and grow the right people hasn't been resolved. It doesn't take much looking to see if they have spammed job boards. If there are going to be 100, or 1000 folks applying for the position, I don't want to deal with the crap. They don't know actual quality, so they more aggressively filter on keywords. If I don't have the right keyword I'm not on the menu? I don't need to work there. They like to pat their back, find someone decent who they can exploit by paying 1/3 of market rate. That game is built to take away my livelihood. I'd rather just work and do truly amazing things for their competitors, and let economics 101 and the market wash the dross from the market. I look for folks who participated in the Techtopus(https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/ https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valle...) (massive screw over engineers company collusion) and if the company was on the list I boycott them. If they are going to try to suppress wages in the field for decades, I can suppress their revenue. I look at company pictures, and pictures of employees on LinkedIN. If they don't have at least one person who is mostly like me, then statistically I can't succeed there. I go elsewhere. I review glassdoor. If they have a track-record of treating folks badly, especially folks who have had my position, I go elsewhere.
skookum 9y ago
What I care about most in a tech job post is not having to see it in the first place. I haven't looked at a job posting since my internships in college and I sincerely hope to never look at one again. I learn far more about a potential next gig by talking to ex-coworkers and acquaintances who are already there than I ever could from looking at a posting.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 9y ago
Ethics, remote, salary range. In that sequence
Xeoncross 9y ago
- Pay - Remote / Location - Flexible hours? - Technology I will be using - Ethics concerns? (Weapons, Spam, Porn, etc..) - Team or solo (if team, can I meet them?) - Architecture vs Coding (Do I have any say in projects?) ---- I am willing to negotiate tens of thousands of dollars for flexible hours and remote. Commute time and costs add up.
- lynnetye 9y ago
  I'm not sure where you are based, but there are some remote-friendly and all-remote teams listed on Key Values (keyvalues.io). Many people define work/life balance as a 40-hour work work, but I would be willing to negotiate tens of thousands of dollars and more hours/week if I had the flexibility to work when and where I wanted to.
35bge57dtjku 9y ago
How many 10x ego people work there, how blame-oriented the company and the team I'd be working on is, how much pressure there is to always go faster and how much time is spent prototyping and researching things, will my manager actually manage as necessary, is there a lot of clearly defined work to be done and/or a clear mission or are they pivoting constantly, is compensation/benefits reasonable and standard, etc.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pasbesoin 9y ago
Maybe not "most", but very important (and seldom described): Environment. Done wasting my time on noise and distraction. "Interaction" is just fine with me, and I can even context-switch pretty rapidly. Unholy levels of stress and requirements to "tune out" a bunch of irrelevant and noisy stuff going on around me? Forgetaboutit. I'm happier shuffling papers in a quiet, peaceful environment, than coding "the solution to the universe" in open space with "George who shouts everything across the aisles" and the very nice Melissa who nonetheless has multiple cube (really, "cubette") meetings everyday while Tayna pounds her (shared) desk constantly in emphasis while on sometimes hours long phone calls. I think a lot of people can be happy doing more and a far wider range of things than they imagine, if the environment is simply right. P.S. Which is by way of saying to employers, if you really want to hire that 10x/rockstar/gets-stuff-done/innovates person, hook them with an assurance they'll have an optimal working environment. And for many, that means a quiet physical environment. And if you're endlessly questioning just where the line is, and how little accommodation you can get away with? You've already lost that person -- sooner, even if they initially take the position.
superasn 9y ago
Visa sponsorship (though I've never had to get a job in my life but afaik this and paid relocation matters a lot to all my friends)
george_m6002 9y ago
absence of postmodernist/cultural marxism/lgbt ideology keywords, among which: gender (there's no gender, there are 2 (two) sexes), diversity (if the best candidates happen to be "white cis male", sorry, I think we can easily do the work without your "diversity"), safe space (if there will be a male colleague which because of a weird mental disorder thinks he's a woman, I want to have the right to call him a man, I don't want to be in the business of babysitting snowflakes)
- greglindahl 9y ago
  Good that you're self-selecting for these issues!
- nostromo123 9y ago
  I agree, and I say this as a woman.
mcv 9y ago
I'm freelancer and not really looking for a steady job. What I look for in projects is a mix: * Location; I love to cycle to work * Pay rate; if it's too low, they're probably not looking for me, and if it's too high, same. Though I'm willing to take a pay cut when other aspects are good * Technology; stuff that I know of course, but even more stuff that I want to learn * Interesting problem space; will I just be moving data between DB and browser, or is there something more interesting about it? I couldn't say which of these is more important; they all count. Money is nice of course, but I'm willing to work for a lower rate if it's close to home and I get to learn something I want to learn but don't know very well yet. The experience is valuable to me, and my lack of experience makes me less valuable to the client, so it makes sense for everybody. And no amount of money is going to make me stick with a job I absolutely hate. Well, maybe some amount of money, but few would pay that much.
alkonaut 9y ago
Apart from stuff you can't ignore (is it the right city etc). I start by ignoring the first 50% of posts because they are contracting positions. Then I look for the tech stack and product built, Since that filters 99% of the remaining ads (I don't like web tech for example) I rarely need to filter on more things.
quadcore 9y ago
Does company size matters to you guys?
lj3 9y ago
> What things do you look for in a technical job post? Location and general technology field (frontend or full stack web tech, in my case). That's it. I don't consider anything else in a job post to be reliable.
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- John_smith89 9y ago
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afarrell 9y ago
1) Location. Very little would change my mind from desired location. 2) Indications of thoughtfulness and solid engineering practices. Positives: "testing" "mentorship" "Craftsmanship" "clear communication" "clear scoping" and indications thereof. Also, 'boringness' of mission--I want to work on plumbing. Negatives: "rockstar" "hot". 3) Salary 4) Tech stack 5) Not having candy in easy reach
- lynnetye 9y ago
  2. Almost all JDs lack information on this front. Knowing how decisions are made, how engineering-driven the company is, and how decisions are made are things we don't find out until a few weeks after we've joined. 5. Support for physical wellness (whether in food or exercise) is also incredibly important to me.
lynnetye 9y ago
I wish job descriptions said more about the team, culture, and engineering values. Sure, salary is important too, but there's a wide range I'd be open to if everything else was aligned. If you look at https://www.keyvalues.io https://www.keyvalues.io, you'll see what dozens of engineers said they cared about most when evaluating a new job. I used their responses to create engineering team profiles that would directly address these things. Not surprisingly, I see many of the same values described in the comments in this post: "Work/Life Balance," "High Quality Code Base," "Flexible Work Arrangements," "Safe Environment to Fail," "Committed to Personal Growth," "Team is Diverse," "Remote-OK," "Thoughtful Office Layout," and questions around how "Product-Driven" the team is.
pcglue 9y ago
Does it mention agile or scrum? If so, pass.
HD134606c 9y ago
Don't say "fast paced". I take this as an indication that the work will be a "move fast and break things" type of culture. Many engineers want to build solid infrastructure and/or cutting edge tech which takes time and thought to develop. Many engineers do want a challenge - we can tell if it's a challenging job post from the rest of the ad. Take this with a grain of salt, some people do actually like "fast paced" of course.
amriksohata 9y ago
Technology, salary, business type (ethical), expected work hours and style of development methodologies. All that is important but also people with people skills
dasmoth 9y ago
Mission and working environment have already been mentioned plenty of times, and are certainly important. One that doesn't show up a huge amount at the moment, but which holds huge weight for me (potentially trumping salary) is autonomy: to what extent am I going to have leverage to build useful things as an individual rather than a mostly-fungible "team member". I'm wondering whether some people have actually been a little scared off from advertising this because of the risk of being dinged for {bad,lack of} process.
mbrock 9y ago
I look for 100% remote positions, with no daily meetings and no culture of video conferencing, and where I can work on free software to benefit the public good!
- dasmoth 9y ago
  Have you had much luck finding such a setup?
- lynnetye 9y ago
  How about Blockstack (https://www.keyvalues.io/blockstack https://www.keyvalues.io/blockstack) or Signal (https://www.keyvalues.io/signal https://www.keyvalues.io/signal)?
probinso 9y ago
When possible, I prefer to apply by email or a simple form; but recognize this is ever less realistic. Do not make me setup an account unless it is government work like the National Labs. I spent a lot of time curating my resume, this includes formatting. Let me submit a pdf. I would like to know the positions funding model upfront. Its nice to know what tech is used, and weather the software stack is monolithic or diverse across the organization. PTO is important, and should be clearly stated. If the team has presented at a technology conference recently this is a huge plus. salary range is helpful (no need to be super narrow). What do i need to know? What am I expected to learn? What are nice things to know? I would love for postings to include the company's expected response time! Also satisfactory "We may not respond if you aren't what we're looking for at this time." Treat your audience like adults. Don't use 'ninja' or 'rockstar' as a positive descriptor. Don't use statements like "We at FreshSqeezed.io provide a service like Twitter but for Farmer's Markets!".

58 points by mrburton 9y ago

When I look at job posts, I really care about what technology is being used, what would my role be on the team and project, and more. What things do you look for in a technical job post?

Winterflow3r 9y ago

1. What problem is the company/team trying to solve? 2. What are the special challenges? For example, ultra low latency or scalability or porting a monolith to microservices 3. Technology stack (does it match with my experience? what can I learn? hotter and newer not always better imho) 4. The language used in the post After this, I usually try to find out as much as I can about the company. It helps a lot if the company has an engineering/team blog.

itamarst 9y ago

Beyond the usual things, that you and others mention, like technical interest and what the company's goal is and so on: does the company provide a sane workweek? Sometimes they very clearly don't ("70-hour weeks" in particularly awful case). Other times they definitely do. Most of the time it's very hard to tell, though, which is a shame. There are lots of other programmers who care about this besides me (my rant about 70-hour workweek got 120,000 page views - https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/09/18/when-startups-pay-less/ https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/09/18/when-startups-pay-le...). If your company is hiring, provides a sane workweek, and you'd like some ideas on how to promote your hiring effots - ping me: itamar@codewithoutrules.com.

mrburton 9y ago
I came across this post on flipbook the other day :)

lucb1e 9y ago

In the job post, I want to know what is expected of me. What am I going to be doing? What languages/technologies am I supposed to know? When I'm interested in a post, I'll look at the company website to get a feel for it. In the job posting they always describe how open and informal the culture is, how great the atmosphere is, etc. etc. The website often tells me what kind of company it really is. If that's alright I'll apply and expect further explanation about both the company and my position in interviews (since interviews are two-way), while I also fill them in on my qualifications.

apexkid 9y ago

When i am spending 8 - 10 hours of time everyday at one place, the most i care is that the organization/team builds an environment that feels comfortable. A place where everyone cares genuinely about each other and is ready to help. I maybe crazy, but something i look for in a job role is trust within the team.

alex_duf 9y ago

- work / life balance - technology used - ethics of the company (not making weapons, not spying etc.)

ljoshua 9y ago

At the risk of sounding shallow, the salary (and NOT "competitive rates" or "DOE"). I don't want to waste my time or a potential employer's if expectations won't line up. It's not, of course, the only thing I care about, but far too few postings offer this level of transparency. Love the other ideas of work week length and problem to be solved as well.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
maxxxxx 9y ago
I agree. I have a lot of respect for companies that post a clear range (it has to be better than just "80000-150000 depending on experience"). It's also nice if they describe what they actually work on and not just some buzzwords. After suffering a cube farm for the last years I also like companies who have offices or are remote. Decent vacation is also appreciated.
YPCrumble 9y ago
That's not shallow at all. If a job doesn't list an attractive salary it's a clear indication it's not a good job.
- eradicatethots 9y ago
  Most jobs don’t list salaries lol
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    If your org doesn't list a salary, I'll go looking on Glassdoor or this crowdsourced spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a1Df6dg2Pby1UoNlZU2l0FEykKsQKttu7O6q7iQd2bU/htmlview?usp=sharing&sle=true https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a1Df6dg2Pby1UoNlZU2l... Or I'll ask former employees sourced from their Linkedin profiles. Fight information asymmetry whenever possible.
    - 9y ago

danharaj 9y ago

I'm chronically ill so I value most of all flexible work hours and an understanding that there will be periods of time ranging from days to weeks to months where I'm derelict as an engineer.

sjroot 9y ago
> days to weeks to months where I’m derelict as a software engineer. Months? I don’t know anything about your situation, but how could you expect an employer to think that this is worth their resources?
- Mz 9y ago
  Probably a poor framing. Maybe think of it as "No, I will not be working overtime on a regular basis and running flat out all the time. I may be able to do stuff like that occasionally, but I just can't sustain it for long periods." I am also chronically ill. I had a job at a Fortune 500 company at one time. People there were aware I was desperately poor because I was walking to work and everyone was giving me rides. Some folks knew this was because of my medical condition. The company didn't do shit all for me (other than all the offers of rides). Meanwhile, someone who made a lot more money than me had a death in the family and they did fundraisers so she could attend both the memorial service in one state and the actual funeral in another. They also routinely did fund raisers for people with a health crisis or a family member with a health crisis. I was there over five years. Nothing like that was ever done for me. It is part of why I left. ("Fuck you, too.") Yes, I have special needs. No, my special needs are not greater than that of other employees who were getting the support I lacked. I now do freelance work so I can work at my own pace. I have carefully arranged my life in that regard. But, really, I don't think I am more of a special snowflake than other people with jobs. But, for whatever reason, people think my needs are unreasonable, while they bend over backwards to take care of other people who, in some cases, have far less serious problems. I get that a lot, in all kinds of ways. I don't really understand why. It is possible that prejudice is an element. Flexible work and remote work is a potential boon for people with chronic health issues. There are a lot of people with such issues. As life expectancy increases and more people survive cancer, etc, we are going to see more people who can work, need to work and want to work, but they need to do it part time, flexibly and/or remotely.

steev 9y ago

1. Type of problems I'd be working on 2. Whether or not the company allows remote workers 3. Salary range

jMyles 9y ago

There's one filter that every single human has: ethics. Not everyone's philosophy is the same; there are missions that I might find detestable and you might not. But for goodness sake, please don't make me go through the process of filling out a long form, writing a cover-letter, and jumping on a 60 minute phone call before you tell me that you're building something to help the government kill people. Like, seriously, put that right at the top and save everybody's time.

taway_1212 9y ago
Bakers make bread. Soldiers eat bread to have energy to kill people. Do bakers help government kill people?
- jMyles 9y ago
  Some people refuse to participate in any meaningful way to the current economic human web. It seems that this generally drives these people to live a life of isolation (usually in the forests of the PNW or SE). I know a few such people, but I'm not convinced that their critique is working out the way they expected. So your point is sound: it's up to each of us to decide how to participate and where to draw various lines.

fluxsauce 9y ago

Is this a team that I want to spend more awake time with than my family? Do I have any moral objections to the way they conduct business? Will I be doing something that's interesting? Would I want to tell others about what I do?

cgb223 9y ago

Having just been through the job hunting process, it’s gotta be the speed at which I can apply. If it takes me more than 2 minutes to apply for your position, I’m going to skip the whole thing If you make me retype everything that’s on my resume, I’m going to pass My ideal application is attach resume, put basic info like Email and name if not automatically scraped and submit

bluedino 9y ago
>> If it takes me more than 2 minutes to apply for your position, I’m going to skip the whole thing This is such a pain, it’s 2017 and I have job sites who want a Word document resume, plain text resume, then in the middle of filling out a web form with my work history I just closed the browser window because I don’t think I really wanted to work at a place like that anyway.
- ju-st 9y ago
  My favourite are job sites where you have to create an account and the account has ridiculous minimum password requirements. Example: "Your password must be at least eight characters long and must include at least one letter (A–Z, a–z), one digit (0–9) and one special character (e.g., !"§$%)."
  - avip 9y ago
    That's downright a scam. I've applied once to a JPMorgan dev team. The verbose application process required me to "register" to some "applicants network". Alas, the registration form had the infamous "I accept the terms of service AND allow you to send spam to the email address you've just forced me to provide" bundled checkbox. Granted that was the end of my attempts to work there.
  - bostik 9y ago
    Sounds like any $BIGCORP that outsources their application flow to Taleo.
dougmccune 9y ago

GoToRO 9y ago

Location: where is the office exactly. Picture with my desk, chair and station. Salary range. All the rest.

ken 9y ago
> Picture with my desk, chair and station. This would save me so much time. I can't count the number of postings I've seen on "StackOverflow Careers" that brag about their Joel Test score (quiet working conditions, check!), but when I dig deeper I find a photo of a giant open floor plan. I've even seen hiring videos where someone bragged about what a great place it was to get work done, and right behind the interviewee is a foosball/ping-pong table, and just on the other side you can see some poor programmer with headphones trying to block it all out. The words "quiet working conditions" must mean something else to hiring teams these days, but no matter. Show a picture of my desk, and there's no ambiguity.

henrik_w 9y ago

For me, it's working with really good colleagues. Quite hard to find out before starting if they are, but if they are already there, the company is likely good, and I will probably learn a lot.

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mtrimpe 9y ago

Just tell me what you want... which is usually what you want to achieve by hiring me. What are the key differentiators you’re looking for? If you had to explain your search to a recruiter... what would your elevator pitch version be? Just tell me that. For one of my last jobs it would’ve been this for example: “You need to be able to explain/guide our customers on how to build internet banking sites using our product and keep them happy in the process. Lots of traveling involved.”

MechEStudent 9y ago

I look at the Joel score. It is simple, and tells me if they are built around making good software or bureaucracy. It they can't make a decent Joel score, or justify why they don't have it, then you are going to spend more of your time attending mandatory meetings than actually writing code. I have come to believe that, in poor quality companies, HR is peopled by gremlins. If the person writing the post gets something really technically bad, and doesn't know it, then I don't want to work there. It means that I am going to be interviewed (and selected) by trolls, instead of technical folks. It means that if I can tell a funny joke, or look cute, then that is going to overwhelm the weight of any technical ability they can discern. It means that half my coworkers are idiots, so when they figure out I can do what they talk about, I'm going to be gamed, pressured, blackmailed, and pushed to do half of everybody's work. If I wanted to do it ALL myself, and get none of the credit, rewards, remuneration, advancement, or job security, then I would start my own company. I look for pointy-haired-boss jargon (think Dilbert). I hate those folks. They usually don't know anything but how to exploit others for their own professional gain. It doesn't take much looking around to see how the company is doing. They like to hire newbies right before a layoff. I look at company performance, and if it looks like they are about to lay a ton of folks off, I don't want to play there. They are laying people off because of previous failures to hire the right people. If the folks getting the axe aren't including the upper levels of HR, then the source of failures to hire, manage, retain, and grow the right people hasn't been resolved. It doesn't take much looking to see if they have spammed job boards. If there are going to be 100, or 1000 folks applying for the position, I don't want to deal with the crap. They don't know actual quality, so they more aggressively filter on keywords. If I don't have the right keyword I'm not on the menu? I don't need to work there. They like to pat their back, find someone decent who they can exploit by paying 1/3 of market rate. That game is built to take away my livelihood. I'd rather just work and do truly amazing things for their competitors, and let economics 101 and the market wash the dross from the market. I look for folks who participated in the Techtopus(https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/ https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valle...) (massive screw over engineers company collusion) and if the company was on the list I boycott them. If they are going to try to suppress wages in the field for decades, I can suppress their revenue. I look at company pictures, and pictures of employees on LinkedIN. If they don't have at least one person who is mostly like me, then statistically I can't succeed there. I go elsewhere. I review glassdoor. If they have a track-record of treating folks badly, especially folks who have had my position, I go elsewhere.

skookum 9y ago

What I care about most in a tech job post is not having to see it in the first place. I haven't looked at a job posting since my internships in college and I sincerely hope to never look at one again. I learn far more about a potential next gig by talking to ex-coworkers and acquaintances who are already there than I ever could from looking at a posting.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 9y ago

Ethics, remote, salary range. In that sequence

Xeoncross 9y ago

- Pay - Remote / Location - Flexible hours? - Technology I will be using - Ethics concerns? (Weapons, Spam, Porn, etc..) - Team or solo (if team, can I meet them?) - Architecture vs Coding (Do I have any say in projects?) ---- I am willing to negotiate tens of thousands of dollars for flexible hours and remote. Commute time and costs add up.

lynnetye 9y ago
I'm not sure where you are based, but there are some remote-friendly and all-remote teams listed on Key Values (keyvalues.io). Many people define work/life balance as a 40-hour work work, but I would be willing to negotiate tens of thousands of dollars and more hours/week if I had the flexibility to work when and where I wanted to.

35bge57dtjku 9y ago

How many 10x ego people work there, how blame-oriented the company and the team I'd be working on is, how much pressure there is to always go faster and how much time is spent prototyping and researching things, will my manager actually manage as necessary, is there a lot of clearly defined work to be done and/or a clear mission or are they pivoting constantly, is compensation/benefits reasonable and standard, etc.

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pasbesoin 9y ago

Maybe not "most", but very important (and seldom described): Environment. Done wasting my time on noise and distraction. "Interaction" is just fine with me, and I can even context-switch pretty rapidly. Unholy levels of stress and requirements to "tune out" a bunch of irrelevant and noisy stuff going on around me? Forgetaboutit. I'm happier shuffling papers in a quiet, peaceful environment, than coding "the solution to the universe" in open space with "George who shouts everything across the aisles" and the very nice Melissa who nonetheless has multiple cube (really, "cubette") meetings everyday while Tayna pounds her (shared) desk constantly in emphasis while on sometimes hours long phone calls. I think a lot of people can be happy doing more and a far wider range of things than they imagine, if the environment is simply right. P.S. Which is by way of saying to employers, if you really want to hire that 10x/rockstar/gets-stuff-done/innovates person, hook them with an assurance they'll have an optimal working environment. And for many, that means a quiet physical environment. And if you're endlessly questioning just where the line is, and how little accommodation you can get away with? You've already lost that person -- sooner, even if they initially take the position.

superasn 9y ago

Visa sponsorship (though I've never had to get a job in my life but afaik this and paid relocation matters a lot to all my friends)

george_m6002 9y ago

absence of postmodernist/cultural marxism/lgbt ideology keywords, among which: gender (there's no gender, there are 2 (two) sexes), diversity (if the best candidates happen to be "white cis male", sorry, I think we can easily do the work without your "diversity"), safe space (if there will be a male colleague which because of a weird mental disorder thinks he's a woman, I want to have the right to call him a man, I don't want to be in the business of babysitting snowflakes)

greglindahl 9y ago
Good that you're self-selecting for these issues!
nostromo123 9y ago
I agree, and I say this as a woman.

mcv 9y ago

I'm freelancer and not really looking for a steady job. What I look for in projects is a mix: * Location; I love to cycle to work * Pay rate; if it's too low, they're probably not looking for me, and if it's too high, same. Though I'm willing to take a pay cut when other aspects are good * Technology; stuff that I know of course, but even more stuff that I want to learn * Interesting problem space; will I just be moving data between DB and browser, or is there something more interesting about it? I couldn't say which of these is more important; they all count. Money is nice of course, but I'm willing to work for a lower rate if it's close to home and I get to learn something I want to learn but don't know very well yet. The experience is valuable to me, and my lack of experience makes me less valuable to the client, so it makes sense for everybody. And no amount of money is going to make me stick with a job I absolutely hate. Well, maybe some amount of money, but few would pay that much.

alkonaut 9y ago

Apart from stuff you can't ignore (is it the right city etc). I start by ignoring the first 50% of posts because they are contracting positions. Then I look for the tech stack and product built, Since that filters 99% of the remaining ads (I don't like web tech for example) I rarely need to filter on more things.

quadcore 9y ago

Does company size matters to you guys?

lj3 9y ago

> What things do you look for in a technical job post? Location and general technology field (frontend or full stack web tech, in my case). That's it. I don't consider anything else in a job post to be reliable.

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afarrell 9y ago

1) Location. Very little would change my mind from desired location. 2) Indications of thoughtfulness and solid engineering practices. Positives: "testing" "mentorship" "Craftsmanship" "clear communication" "clear scoping" and indications thereof. Also, 'boringness' of mission--I want to work on plumbing. Negatives: "rockstar" "hot". 3) Salary 4) Tech stack 5) Not having candy in easy reach

lynnetye 9y ago
2. Almost all JDs lack information on this front. Knowing how decisions are made, how engineering-driven the company is, and how decisions are made are things we don't find out until a few weeks after we've joined. 5. Support for physical wellness (whether in food or exercise) is also incredibly important to me.

lynnetye 9y ago

I wish job descriptions said more about the team, culture, and engineering values. Sure, salary is important too, but there's a wide range I'd be open to if everything else was aligned. If you look at https://www.keyvalues.io https://www.keyvalues.io, you'll see what dozens of engineers said they cared about most when evaluating a new job. I used their responses to create engineering team profiles that would directly address these things. Not surprisingly, I see many of the same values described in the comments in this post: "Work/Life Balance," "High Quality Code Base," "Flexible Work Arrangements," "Safe Environment to Fail," "Committed to Personal Growth," "Team is Diverse," "Remote-OK," "Thoughtful Office Layout," and questions around how "Product-Driven" the team is.

pcglue 9y ago

Does it mention agile or scrum? If so, pass.

HD134606c 9y ago

Don't say "fast paced". I take this as an indication that the work will be a "move fast and break things" type of culture. Many engineers want to build solid infrastructure and/or cutting edge tech which takes time and thought to develop. Many engineers do want a challenge - we can tell if it's a challenging job post from the rest of the ad. Take this with a grain of salt, some people do actually like "fast paced" of course.

amriksohata 9y ago

Technology, salary, business type (ethical), expected work hours and style of development methodologies. All that is important but also people with people skills

dasmoth 9y ago

Mission and working environment have already been mentioned plenty of times, and are certainly important. One that doesn't show up a huge amount at the moment, but which holds huge weight for me (potentially trumping salary) is autonomy: to what extent am I going to have leverage to build useful things as an individual rather than a mostly-fungible "team member". I'm wondering whether some people have actually been a little scared off from advertising this because of the risk of being dinged for {bad,lack of} process.

mbrock 9y ago

I look for 100% remote positions, with no daily meetings and no culture of video conferencing, and where I can work on free software to benefit the public good!

dasmoth 9y ago
Have you had much luck finding such a setup?
lynnetye 9y ago
How about Blockstack (https://www.keyvalues.io/blockstack https://www.keyvalues.io/blockstack) or Signal (https://www.keyvalues.io/signal https://www.keyvalues.io/signal)?

probinso 9y ago

When possible, I prefer to apply by email or a simple form; but recognize this is ever less realistic. Do not make me setup an account unless it is government work like the National Labs. I spent a lot of time curating my resume, this includes formatting. Let me submit a pdf. I would like to know the positions funding model upfront. Its nice to know what tech is used, and weather the software stack is monolithic or diverse across the organization. PTO is important, and should be clearly stated. If the team has presented at a technology conference recently this is a huge plus. salary range is helpful (no need to be super narrow). What do i need to know? What am I expected to learn? What are nice things to know? I would love for postings to include the company's expected response time! Also satisfactory "We may not respond if you aren't what we're looking for at this time." Treat your audience like adults. Don't use 'ninja' or 'rockstar' as a positive descriptor. Don't use statements like "We at FreshSqeezed.io provide a service like Twitter but for Farmer's Markets!".