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Show HN: Keyboard Jobs – A job board which truly understands software developers

23 points by dustedcodes 4y ago

Hi HN, When my daughter got born this year I decided to take 6 months off to be at home with my new daughter and spend the first few months together with her and my wife to be hands on in those first few crucial months. Throughout that time I always kept an eye on the job market so I could stay in the loop and better gauge what my prospects would be to go back into work later, not least because of the economic turmoil. However, I got immensely frustrated with existing job boards advertising software developer jobs. I didn't feel like they included a lot of information which engineers actually care about or even basic things like a salary range. Additionally I observed discussions on HN how increasingly more software engineers say they wouldn't want to work for a company anymore if they use technology X or Y. With that in mind I created Keyboard Jobs and launched it a few weeks ago. So far I've been mostly talking friends at former companies I've worked with or sent cold emails with 100% discounted voucher codes to get the first jobs listed. It's been moderately successful but I am ready to gather more feedback on what hackers would love to see from a job board made for them!

ogarten 4y ago
Nice! Most job boards suck for tech jobs. Most remote jobs seem to have some restrictions on the location you are supposed to be in. Would be great if one could see that directly in the listing.
- abinaya_rl 4y ago
  This is the exact problem we are trying to solve with Remote Leaf[1](I'm the founder). We have been manually curating remote jobs and carefully tagging them each, finally sending the personalized list of jobs that fit based on their location and skills. 1. https://remoteleaf.com https://remoteleaf.com
  - ogarten 4y ago
    That's nice. I am not looking for jobs right now, but definitely saved in case I need it later!
  - gcau 4y ago
    I like it - a little feedback, I was very hesitant to put in my email to "subscribe" to a generic looking mailing list. The only reason I did is because I read your comment here. Might be worth looking into improving. Maybe give some indication it's only step 1, or change the button text to "get started", so we can know there's gonna be more input to what we want to receive.
- dustedcodes 4y ago
  > Would be great if one could see that directly in the listing. Agree, that's going to come with the next release.
Zombieball 4y ago
Honest question: would many developers reject a job based upon the version control system the company uses? Or the laptop OS given for that matter?
- 414owen 4y ago
  I would. A few basic requirements are: git, linux, a desktop computer (or to be allowed to use my own)
- dotancohen 4y ago
  VCS could be a proxy for other issues, a (non-code) smell if you will. A company that calls itself a "startup" but is using SVN and PHP 5.6 (actual company that I evaluated and turned down last year) is not likely to produce a productive environment nor happy, satisfied workers. I wouldn't put either the VCS nor the laptop OS as a mandatory requirement, but rather as another straw on the camel's back.
- Majestic121 4y ago
  I had to work in secure environments where we had to use Windows and no possibility for local admin, it can very much impact the desire and ability to do the job
- kamotos 4y ago
  I did. Having been used to working on Linux, I found it so painful to work on a Windows laptop, only to deploy the same software on Linux. I'd rather have my local setup close to what we have in production, Linux based OS. I am currently in the market, and I reject any job offer where I know that the company is using Windows.
- 8organicbits 4y ago
  I suspect these signal other attributes about the stack. If you started a project recently, you very likely considered and chose git for version control. If you are using a different/older system, it could mean the project has lots of legacy code and hasn't kept the dev stack up to date. I.E. poor developer experience. Same is true for opposite perspective: "framework of the week" could also signal a poor fit.
Majestic121 4y ago
"Keyboard jobs" J and K do not navigate up and down the page, H and L do not switch between Remote/Backend/Frontend/Search/Home No obvious keyboard shortcut to go to a specific listing. Navigating with Tab does not highlight the listing focused. Mouse is pretty much mandatory. I'm a bit disappointed.
- 3np 4y ago
  Opposite reaction here. Set up browser to behave how I expect by default; loathe when websites insist on hijacking common keys for their own "helpful" JS implementations.
- dustedcodes 4y ago
  Thanks that is interesting. You're the third person to give me this feedback, but the first person to make specific suggestions which keys you expected to behave in which way, which is very helpful. Until now I wasn't sure which keys I should bind to which functionality. I take the other poster's comment into consideration and I think there could be a fun middle ground, where some keys do actual useful stuff (a bit like on GitHub) but it doesn't feel like I'm hijacking the default browser's behaviour.
  - 3np 4y ago
    Please leave / alone, at least - it's the single most frustrating thing in the GH UI here.
- tarboreus 4y ago
  Yeah, the tab key works just fine, which is what is supposed to be implemented for keyboard accessibility.
8organicbits 4y ago
This has good information, but the lack of sorting by salary, or filtering by salary band is a deal breaker. As a senior engineer I'm not interested in seeing internships or jobs that would require a pay cut. I wouldn't want emails about those jobs. Normalizing salary would be very helpful. I see different time periods, different currencies. I also agree with others, remote work isn't a check box. I think for remote work you'd need to select where the job seeker is and check if the job supports it. It gets complex if the job seeker can relocate for a remote job.

23 points by dustedcodes 4y ago

ogarten 4y ago

Nice! Most job boards suck for tech jobs. Most remote jobs seem to have some restrictions on the location you are supposed to be in. Would be great if one could see that directly in the listing.

abinaya_rl 4y ago
This is the exact problem we are trying to solve with Remote Leaf[1](I'm the founder). We have been manually curating remote jobs and carefully tagging them each, finally sending the personalized list of jobs that fit based on their location and skills. 1. https://remoteleaf.com https://remoteleaf.com
- ogarten 4y ago
  That's nice. I am not looking for jobs right now, but definitely saved in case I need it later!
- gcau 4y ago
  I like it - a little feedback, I was very hesitant to put in my email to "subscribe" to a generic looking mailing list. The only reason I did is because I read your comment here. Might be worth looking into improving. Maybe give some indication it's only step 1, or change the button text to "get started", so we can know there's gonna be more input to what we want to receive.
dustedcodes 4y ago
> Would be great if one could see that directly in the listing. Agree, that's going to come with the next release.

Zombieball 4y ago

Honest question: would many developers reject a job based upon the version control system the company uses? Or the laptop OS given for that matter?

414owen 4y ago
I would. A few basic requirements are: git, linux, a desktop computer (or to be allowed to use my own)
dotancohen 4y ago
VCS could be a proxy for other issues, a (non-code) smell if you will. A company that calls itself a "startup" but is using SVN and PHP 5.6 (actual company that I evaluated and turned down last year) is not likely to produce a productive environment nor happy, satisfied workers. I wouldn't put either the VCS nor the laptop OS as a mandatory requirement, but rather as another straw on the camel's back.
Majestic121 4y ago
I had to work in secure environments where we had to use Windows and no possibility for local admin, it can very much impact the desire and ability to do the job
kamotos 4y ago
I did. Having been used to working on Linux, I found it so painful to work on a Windows laptop, only to deploy the same software on Linux. I'd rather have my local setup close to what we have in production, Linux based OS. I am currently in the market, and I reject any job offer where I know that the company is using Windows.
8organicbits 4y ago
I suspect these signal other attributes about the stack. If you started a project recently, you very likely considered and chose git for version control. If you are using a different/older system, it could mean the project has lots of legacy code and hasn't kept the dev stack up to date. I.E. poor developer experience. Same is true for opposite perspective: "framework of the week" could also signal a poor fit.

Majestic121 4y ago

"Keyboard jobs" J and K do not navigate up and down the page, H and L do not switch between Remote/Backend/Frontend/Search/Home No obvious keyboard shortcut to go to a specific listing. Navigating with Tab does not highlight the listing focused. Mouse is pretty much mandatory. I'm a bit disappointed.

3np 4y ago
Opposite reaction here. Set up browser to behave how I expect by default; loathe when websites insist on hijacking common keys for their own "helpful" JS implementations.
dustedcodes 4y ago
Thanks that is interesting. You're the third person to give me this feedback, but the first person to make specific suggestions which keys you expected to behave in which way, which is very helpful. Until now I wasn't sure which keys I should bind to which functionality. I take the other poster's comment into consideration and I think there could be a fun middle ground, where some keys do actual useful stuff (a bit like on GitHub) but it doesn't feel like I'm hijacking the default browser's behaviour.
- 3np 4y ago
  Please leave / alone, at least - it's the single most frustrating thing in the GH UI here.
tarboreus 4y ago
Yeah, the tab key works just fine, which is what is supposed to be implemented for keyboard accessibility.

8organicbits 4y ago

This has good information, but the lack of sorting by salary, or filtering by salary band is a deal breaker. As a senior engineer I'm not interested in seeing internships or jobs that would require a pay cut. I wouldn't want emails about those jobs. Normalizing salary would be very helpful. I see different time periods, different currencies. I also agree with others, remote work isn't a check box. I think for remote work you'd need to select where the job seeker is and check if the job supports it. It gets complex if the job seeker can relocate for a remote job.