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Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform? Memes and videos are now being posted. I used to get decent use from it b

Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform? Memes and videos are now being posted. I used to get decent use from it but stopped updating my profile because the site is cancer. Full of self patting on the back and people adding me to “grow their network”. Recruiters contacting me with “perfect fit” position in languages not on my profile. Can someone please develop hacker news type basic site but for jobs? No memes, no dark patterns, no likes.

vagab0nd 3y ago
My LinkedIn network is my biggest audience. I use it to post random thoughts and whatnot, because it's more fun when you know there's an audience. I rarely get any views or likes though.
- nostrademons 3y ago
  Is it actually an audience if nobody's viewing it?
  - vagab0nd 3y ago
    I need to get it out anyway. If there's a better option I'd use it.
    - digging 3y ago
      You could just make your own blog if you don't care about readership. Would probably be better for the longevity.
    - criddell 3y ago
      Get a dog and every day take it on a long walk-and-talk where you tell your dog all your hot takes and random thoughts. Your dog will look forward to this, will look for you on days when you forget or think you are too busy for the walk-and-talk, and as a side benefit, you will get a little exercise, some sunshine, and fresh air. It can also help clarify your thinking. If you can't convince your dog that technical debt is widely misunderstood, then how will you convince your colleagues?
    - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
      If it’s not causing you any issues then I’m sure it’s fine, but this seems like an abuse of the word ‘need’.
Xenoamorphous 3y ago
It’s a humble-bragging cesspit.
- ogn3rd 3y ago
  It really is!
beanjuiceII 3y ago
turning into? I left it years ago because it already became that
btgeekboy 3y ago
There are monthly who’s hiring and who wants to be hired threads that seem to fill that niche.
- codeTired 3y ago
  Unfortunately my tech stack isn’t very popular with HN, SQL/C#. Maybe it’s time to reskill.
  - codegeek 3y ago
    Naah. C# and .NET is solid. I am doubling down on it even for startups. Doing my next product in it.
    - zeroCalories 3y ago
      I think his point is valid though. While I see C# listed all the time on normal job posting sites, on HN it's always the sexy meme languages like Rust and Python.
      - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
        None of those are “meme” languages. I appreciate Python started-off as a toy-like language - but its utility as a glue-language for serious number-crunching (see: how almost all ML projects involve Python somehow) and the admirable community surrounding it means its credibility is established. The worst thing anyone can say about Python is that it’s the new VBA. Rust is the new C++ - Microsoft wouldn’t be investing tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars in enabling Rust for Windows drivers if it wasn’t serious. (Whereas it’s Zig and Carbon where I have concerns about adoption and longevity: the post-C ecosystem isn’t large enough to sustain three languages that overlap each other so much)
        eesmith 3y ago
        > Python started-off as a toy-like language It did not. It started as a language do system administration for the Amoeba operating system. Here's part of the README for the first public release (0.9p1, available from python.org): "This is Python, an extensible interpreted programming language that combines remarkable power with very clear syntax." "Python can be used instead of shell, Awk or Perl scripts, to write prototypes of real applications, or as an extension language of large systems, you name it."
codegeek 3y ago
Yep. Check out /r/linkedinlunatics
- supportengineer 3y ago
  Any overlap with /r/ImTheMainCharacter ?
mrbonner 3y ago
Yeah mine news feed has turned into a condescending stream of thoughts buried under the empathy offering agendas.
- pydry 3y ago
  Or this: https://d2u3dcdbebyaiu.cloudfront.net/uploads/atch_img/442/f79224d64dc96a1021f0874c2d365363_res.jpeg https://d2u3dcdbebyaiu.cloudfront.net/uploads/atch_img/442/f...
  - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
    Is there a name for the specific kind of moderate-level of mental anguish I felt when reading that?
    - regularjack 3y ago
      Cringe
    - f1shy 3y ago
      In german and spanish there is an expression for shaming for others. Fremdschāmen / Verguenza ajena. In english cringe, maybe?
    - adonovan 3y ago
      "Consultant"
      - netsharc 3y ago
        The sad thing is if that guy was doing a presentation, there'd be middle managers and C-Level people nodding while being inspired...
    - eecc 3y ago
      Vicarious embarrassment
    - deleted 3y ago
LightBug1 3y ago
Worse than that. For me, in recent months, the volume of adverts and 'suggested''s feels like it's been throttled up so much that it's completely overwhelming the majority of my personal networks output ... which is the only reason I'm there. Potential RIP in a matter of weeks/months ... frustrating.
fullshark 3y ago
People are now posting about politics there. That's the death knell imo.
- marcod 3y ago
  Tell me one area that has not gotten more political or partisan in recent years.
  - olyjohn 3y ago
    Are you actually defending posting that trash on LinkedIn?
    - marcod 3y ago
      I'm not a fan of this development, though Msft invited it with their social-mediaization of Linked In ...
  - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
    I actually tried to think of one and struggled… I host a weekly open-mic at a local bar (mostly music but some standup and poetry) and more and more often I’ve had to figure out how to gracefully handle a performer using some of their 6-10 minutes to share their not-as-popular-as-they-might think political takes or commentary. And it should be handled gracefully, because I’m not in the business of banning political content from the contents of poetry or standup or lyrics or whatever. Both from all sides I wish there was a bit more of a shared cultural understanding or reservation towards divisive political topics.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- leviathant 3y ago
  People have been posting about politics there for a very long time; it's only just starting to bubble up into your timeline, I suppose. Don't hesitate to mute accounts. For example, blocking Gary Vee almost single-handedly made my LinkedIn feed usable again. I never followed him or any of his pages to begin with, but enough of my connections embarrassingly engage with those kinds of posts that it cluttered everything up. Go to the source and pull out the root of the problem. re: politics, there are one or two LinkedIn entities that post the most mildly progressive of content, and it's the knuckle-draggers in the comments that made me block these pages.
IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
the irony is that your comment is being "liked" in droves , lol
draugadrotten 3y ago
The business model of linkedIn is a bit messed up. It pretends to offer something to you, the individual. Yet you are not paying for the site, so you are part of the product not the customer. The real customers are companies (advertising) and recruiters (self-described raw meat to be had). However, linkedIn seems to have messed up with that business model as well. Because recruiters wants recruits - not just a mailing list of people who are not interested. This leaves only the advertisers, thus turning even more recruits from visiting the site, therefore making the site less interesting to recruiters. A downward spiral, really. Recent offerings of linkedin Learning seems to be attempts to mitigate this but at the core of the problem really is that the site offers very little value to recruits. Maybe there are some smart business model people around that could fix that, who knows. The space is ready for dis-ruption.
teekert 3y ago
I made the mistake of answering to an antivax post (something like “yeah “we” survived the Spanish flu and other pandemics but always at a horrible cost.” And my feed turned awful, I report posts on a regular basis now. Other than that, it’s still the way to contact anyone, I mean anyone I remotely know or knew.
- ghaff 3y ago
  >it’s still the way to contact anyone Yeah. I usually try other means first but if I don't have or can't find what seems like a reliable email address, LinkedIn is a pretty good avenue--especially with so many people having largely migrated asway from Twitter and Facebook.
tombert 3y ago
It's extremely frustrating, because in 2023 you're sort of expected to have a linkedin (some job applications even require it!), but people have started treating it like the next FaceBook. From 2020-2022 I saw a lot of COVID conspiracy theories and political memes being posted, and I wanted to respond to them, but since LinkedIn is basically a resume, I withheld responding, for the same reason that I don't put my voting history directly on my resume. Though honestly the worst part is the "inspiration porn" that people post on there all the time, nearly all of which reduce to "the job market is tough, but don't give up because it gets easy!!!". When you point out that it, in fact, does not ever get "easy" to wake up to 30 rejection emails every morning, they either try and sell you on some meditation routine, tell you that you have a bad attitude, or just block you. Honestly, it really is the absolute worst platform that I am stuck using. There are worse websites, obviously, but no one is forcing me to go to 4chan or The Daily Stormer every day.
- nilespotter 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - hef19898 3y ago
    None?
  - pc86 3y ago
    You have missed the point by a fantastically, awe-inspiring amount.
  - irrational 3y ago
    Hindsight is 20/20. Looking back we see... that none of them were true.
    - mandmandam 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - 3y ago
taeric 3y ago
I think I notice that every time I have to login. Isn't exactly new, is it? I'm curious what "decent use" you used to get from it? That you used to be contacted by better fit jobs? Were you finding contract positions? Or hopping from a full time to another full time? It has to be tough, as I imagine that most folks aren't actively looking for a job except for when they don't have one. I try and respond politely to any contacts I get, but there have been times I was overwhelmed.
- codeTired 3y ago
  The use was mostly getting decent hits from recruiters and the feed when I opened the page didn’t want to make me vomit. I am frankly at a point where I realized internet became an extremely toxic place full of dark patterns. I miss days of nerds making sites to share informations and hobbies.
  - taeric 3y ago
    Makes sense, I think. I, sadly, never remember LinkedIn not doing that. I think I can find a tweet or other journal entry talking about how awkward the site is every time I ever find myself using it. Shame, as I do want to keep in touch with friends from old jobs. Doesn't feel like a good way to do it, though.
MikusR 3y ago
>Memes and videos are now being posted Was there a time when it was not like this? At least 12 years ago it was the same.
graypegg 3y ago
It really is this group of maybe max 10000 people all boasting to each other, interspersed with “I got laid off, available to hire!”. It’s a pretty depressing place. I wonder what the strategic plan Microsoft had in mind originally was? Was it really as simple as “we are all about business, that is the business network”?
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  > I wonder what the strategic plan Microsoft had in mind originally was? Was it really as simple as “we are all about business, that is the business network”? I thought that’s what they bought Yammer for - but then they also bought LinkedIn.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
> Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform? Memes and videos are now being posted. It's also gotten pretty political. If I cared about your political hot takes - I'd be on Facebook. Though this seems to be permeating everywhere, even to HN - even though the mods try their best to keep it out.
notjoemama 3y ago
If this adds a humorous twist on it for you, I saw someone describe it as like a dating site except it’s women trying to contact men and men ghosting them.
- paulcrecruiter 3y ago
  It's actually even more funny than this: it's beautiful women trying to contact nerdy men and getting ghosted by them :)
  - anilmr 3y ago
    lol, https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-hotz-b3866476/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-hotz-b3866476/ - George Hotz of comma.ai uses LinkedIn for dating ;)
    - jackbravo 3y ago
      I thought this was a joke, but then he puts it right in his profile: > PLEASE READ PROFILE. While some people use LinkedIn for "networking" and advertising their "personal brand," I use this site exclusively as a dating platform. If you are intelligent, attractive, female, in or visiting San Diego, and perhaps a bit out of the norm, I might be interested. Send me a message and invite me out for a drink! (and please make it clear you are asking me on a date) All non-dating related messages will be ignored. But at the same time seems like it is a failed platform for him too: > UPDATE. LinkedIn is too full of faux career climbers and not enough dating opportunity. Follow me on Instagram @georgehotz
      - anilmr 3y ago
        haha, guess LinkedIn didn't help him with dating.
      - alephnerd 3y ago
        That explains why they were asking for Putman scores when hiring engineers around the time they started.
zeroCalories 3y ago
> Can someone please develop hacker news type basic site but for jobs? No memes, no dark patterns, no likes. Isn't that what sites like indeed are?
amelius 3y ago
> Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform? As someone who didn't bother to curate their LinkedIn account all I can say is: This is great news! Now my career opportunities are again the same as everybody else's.
wayfinder 3y ago
Well most people see LinkedIn as a central place to store resumes. Being everyone’s free storage unit does not generally make money. So they have to turn the resume storage part into a loss leader and turn a profit some other way. Being a place to list job postings is the most obvious but they have competition already. Throwing on ads will make money but LinkedIn isn’t a site most people stick around on. Turning LinkedIn into a social media site keeps people on the site so the ads work, but it’s a pretty ugly way to do it. The type of people who are actually going to use LinkedIn like Facebook is probably the worst kind of people you want sticking around too. LinkedIn could have stayed a small site with a small team but they got started by getting money from investors. Now they have other people to answer too.
- ghaff 3y ago
  >Well most people see LinkedIn as a central place to store resumes. Or as a self-updating Rolodex of which there were quite a few at one point. Obviously it can serve other purposes as well but that's all I've ever used it for.
jlarocco 3y ago
> Recruiters contacting me with “perfect fit” position in languages not on my profile. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but not everybody is bothered by that. Most languages popular nowadays (C#, Javascript/Typescript, Java, C++, etc.) are popular partly because most devs can jump between them pretty easily. Definitely not defending Linkedin, though. A coworker of mine writes posts about his stance on abortion. I don't know what Linkedin's policy is about it, but it's super awkward, and I just stay far away.
- abirch 3y ago
  LinkedIn after 2020: it's the new proctologist as a service that nobody wants.
- radiator 3y ago
  I thought he actually meant that they contact him in foreign languages.
- nsxwolf 3y ago
  On multiple occasions I have responded to a "perfect fit" type message on a tech stack mismatch, only to have it lead to a phone screen where everyone is confused why we're talking.
  - jlarocco 3y ago
    Depends on the situation. My current job is primarily using a new-to-me language (C#) on a platform I hadn't used in 10 years (Windows), and though I have some buyers remorse (Windows is still terrible), everybody was on the same page about my skills, I've picked up C# easily enough, and it's worked out fine so far.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  > A coworker of mine writes posts about his stance on abortion. Pro or against? [That was a joke. Please don't answer.]
  - 3y ago
gopher2000 3y ago
> Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform? This has been the case for years, IMO. I noticed a rampant increase in it through the 2016 election and everything that followed.
JohnFen 3y ago
I abandoned LinkedIn years ago because of the incessant bottom-feeder recruiter spam it got me. I've only grown happier with that decision over time.
spacemadness 3y ago
It’s been like this for many years now. I can’t really remember it otherwise. I’ve lost respect for some colleagues after seeing all the self congratulatory posting that exaggerates what happened and long-winded work stories on their profiles. I’m done with giving folks a pass at this stage on their Linkedin ladder climbing nonsense. Like most social media it’s a giant circlejerk just with a white collar lean.
- DoesntMatter22 3y ago
  I think it's even worse than that. I've seen a lot of crazy political discussions there where people, fully identifiable, are just losing their minds, saying racist stuff even. I have no idea why people would be willing to risk their jobs like that but I see people from Fortune 50 companies doing it. Crazy
  - spacemadness 3y ago
    That is something. I stopped reading it entirely sometime last year but don’t recall the crazy uncle effect. What was mentioned sounded similar to what I experienced, including the memes—-but I didn’t realize it was sinking so low in becoming Reddit on a bad day without the anonymity.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      [dead]
    - DoesntMatter22 3y ago
      Literally it was worse than almost anything I've seen on reddit. Idk if they put a stop to it or not but it was madness
  - abawany 3y ago
    And reporting blatant garbage always results in 'we don't think there is a problem here' response from LI.
kylestlb 3y ago
always has been :)
alpn 3y ago
I'm working on https://hackerli.st https://hackerli.st to do exactly that, rolling out jobs this week.
Zaheer 3y ago
Have you tried Levels.fyi? https://www.levels.fyi/jobs https://www.levels.fyi/jobs Lmk if you have any feedback as well!
saos 3y ago
It’s still great for finding roles and that’s it. I never update my profile. Only use it when I’m on the hunt for a new role.
femiagbabiaka 3y ago
Hacker news is already the hacker news type site for jobs IMO.
latexr 3y ago
> Can someone please develop hacker news type basic site but for jobs? https://hnhiring.com https://hnhiring.com
johnnyanmac 3y ago
It's not very subtle. I watched a 2 minute clip of 5 men working together to save a dog from a river. And that was loosely connected to a generic post about how team work is effective. Sometime in the last 5 years LinkedIn just became a slightly more formal variant of FB/Instagram. >Can someone please develop hacker news type basic site but for jobs HN does have a job board: https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs And monthly there is a "Who's hiring" and "Who wants to be hired" thread automatically posted. Nothing for my domain there but I check it a few times a year.
- yumraj 3y ago
  > HN does have a job board: That’s not a generic job board. It’s only for YC companies.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Yeah, the linked job board is only for YC. The monthly threads are generic, though. And decently active.
- gowld 3y ago
  If that's the video of the construction-worker looking guys pulling the dog from a canal-looking waterway, that video was awesome.
gumby 3y ago
You can just use it in the original way: simply look at profiles, make the occasional requested intro for someone you actually know to someone you actually know, and maintain your resume. I have ignored the drive to turn it into a social network and it pretty much works the same as it did when it started. For example, when I have a meeting with someone I always look them up on LI first, to see if we have something in common.
- winphone1974 3y ago
  I agree! I think it's actually easier to avoid the big, weak network because it started as a professional tool. I curate my connections and don't accept every recruiter or sales person who sees it as yet another marketing channel. It's been invaluable for reaching out to my former coworkers to try and recruit them
duxup 3y ago
My perception was that… at least 5+ years ago. I’m on there only if I need a job, otherwise it is dead to me. There is no content I have any interest in on there.
rmk 3y ago
I enjoy visiting shlinkedin.com from time to time!
JustLurking2022 3y ago
My solution is aggressively unfollowing or disconnecting from people. There may still be a lot of low value interactions, but at least I don't have to see them.
- anilmr 3y ago
  LinkedIn has been showing algorithmic feed from 1st, 2nd, & 3rd degree connections for a while, but they recently started aggressively showing out of network content for engagement. So unfollowing might help to filter out speicific people, but it won't stop your feed from getting cluttered with unrelated posts from some random person.
pseudotrash 3y ago
The recruiter spam and self promoting content from people who talk like they got 3 mortgages and 4 ex-spouses or ... -the opposite- absolute silence and disdain of a crowd that never posts these thoughts under their real name (and rant on HN or twitter instead speaking their truth on LinkedIn) has always been deafening. In the age of Musk's twitter it is somewhat peculiar that LinkedIn ended up as the last social media platform where interesting posts can be discovered provided you don't "blind-follow" and follow the right people. None of this will work for those who expect it to work as some kind of magic garden where recruiters will present only what is relevant to you. That LinkedIn though never existed in the first place.
charles_f 3y ago
I spent some time a while back to "unfollow" everyone on linkedin apart from a very few select individuals. I unfollow people by default everytime I have a new connection. My wall is uneventful, but at least I don't feel like I'm going to facebook everytime I connect (which is rare)
- ge96 3y ago
  I have to know/worked with the person or if they're a recruiter (to connect).
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  Kind of related: One day I decided to rapid-fire dismiss all of the "suggested connections" that LinkedIn was putting in front of me. I probably dismissed 200 in a single sitting. The next day(?), I got a warning from LinkedIn that my account was being audited for misuse or some such thing. Although I was manually dismissing those suggestions, I'm guessing it tripped some bot-detector or something.
CoastalCoder 3y ago
There's one thing LinkedIn gets very right about job searches: remembering if I've indicated that I'm not interested in a particular job posting. That massively improves the signal-to-noise ratio over e.g. Google, who's daily updates show me mostly the same jobs from one day to the next.
- IlPeach 3y ago
  Oh right and then it suggests me the exact same job ad and slightly grays it out. What. The. Hell.
  - CoastalCoder 3y ago
    I could see the ability to re-visit such postings being useful on occasion. No idea what LinkedIn's reasons are, but I think grayed-out is good enough. If nothing else, it's light-years beyond Google's approach.
acjohnson55 3y ago
Yes, but I also find it's one of the best remaining social media platforms for talking about craft. Unfortunately, it tends to suffer from toxic positivity that's almost the inverse of Twitter's ability to incite fights. There's almost an implicit "let's make each other look good" dynamic. Although, you do occasionally see controversial engagement bait too.
- tayo42 3y ago
  That's pretty much corporate culture? Have you worked anywhere that wasn't like that?
vmfunction 3y ago
I have not touched LinkedIn since MS took over. And I'm not surprised by what it has become. Pretty much when a big corp takes over a social media this can be expected. Please get off LinkedIn. It is a cancer of digital society.
- Aleksdev 3y ago
  That’s not an option for many. Some jobs require LinkedIn just to apply!
Dalewyn 3y ago
>Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform? Seeing as it's somehow the only social network to spam my email (I never even touched LinkedIn) endlessly? Yeah, it's been shit for many years. Even by social media standards.
sgerenser 3y ago
Replying for better reach.
pronik 3y ago
Probably very few people here are familiar with Xing, the German "business networking site". I was convinced LinkedIn would eat Xing's lunch when they launched in Germany, since the same happened pretty fast to Facebook and its local clone (StudiVZ). However, it hasn't happened then and only now some small tendency for people to prefer LinkedIn can be noticed, but mostly because of international contacts and not because the site is all that great. Anyway, in the last couple of years, Xing also mutated from a business contact network to a wanna-be Facebook social network, with memes, neurotic posting, outreach metrics etc. Instead of being a contact backbone, it's become an attention leech, basically the same experience as you describe for LinkedIn. At least in case of Xing, it's more or less known that they have been infested by product managers for a long time, whose only metric for success has ever been "innovation (tm)", so it's explainable, but still stupid. I suppose same could be happening at LinkedIn, even though they never have been good to begin with, palatable at most.
lr4444lr 3y ago
It's an annoying layer on top, but I think the core (highly searchable centralized network of job seekers and employers) is still very valuable.
ern 3y ago
I've hibernated my LinkedIn profile after I was stalked by an unstable bank employee who I had a bad interaction with: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37417397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37417397 Until their privacy and visibility policies are put on par with other social media platforms, I'm going to use it strictly for job-hunting when needed.
musha68k 3y ago
It has always been that way to me. Also over-run with recruiters.
hintymad 3y ago
This reminds me of the hay days of Bolt. For ever new hire, their managers and directors and VPs and what not would post something effusive and congratulatory. It's kinda comical and tiring.
jredwards 3y ago
I think everyone has noticed this. There's a popular subreddit called r/LinkedInLunatics which follows some of the insane things people post there.
tracerbulletx 3y ago
Between that and the "I've been unemployed for 5 months and am about to lose my house" posts with 1000 replies telling them how to network better, it's very very depressing.
nvy 3y ago
>Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform? It's always been a shitty social media platform. It's entirely performative; just people yeeting artificial pseudo blog posts out into the ether, all virtue-signalling past each other. LinkedIn is one of the worst websites I can think of.
deleted 3y ago
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zetsurin 3y ago
According to this it's inevitable: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
thefascistleft 3y ago
[dead]
jader201 3y ago
I’m not much on social media as it is (HN is about the only one left that I still visit regularly), but even when I was doing _some_ social media, it was Twitter and _rarely_ Facebook, but never LinkedIn. Not for years. The last time I probably used LinkedIn for anything was networking some when I changed jobs (almost 10 years ago). Unless you hop jobs a lot, I just don’t see how it adds any value.
mbrochh 3y ago
The site has always been the cancer that you described here. No idea how you ever got decent use out of it.
ricardobayes 3y ago
For me the last nail in the coffin was showing unfiltered images of human remains - from the latest middle eastern conflict. No trigger warning, no NSFW filter, nothing. That's unacceptable.
Blackstrat 3y ago
Yes and it was as predictable as sunrise after Microsoft acquired them. Formally, I was a paid subscriber and conducted a good bit of business via LinedIn. After Microsoft acquired them, I canceled and now visit LinkedIn infrequently, and usually then only in response to a direct message. Those on the previous thread cheering the prospects from Microsoft's acquisition of Activision/Blizzard are likely to be disappointed in the outcome as well.
merlindru 3y ago
> Can someone please develop hacker news type basic site but for jobs? No memes, no dark patterns, no likes. I'm building flexible.dev that eventually will be _exactly_ this! Right now there are no comments, want to add those soon. The job feed is curated (manually, eventually automatically) from Reddit and HN "Who's hiring" posts.
- codeTired 3y ago
  Nice! The name implies the jobs will be flexible? I need some more of those.

vagab0nd 3y ago

My LinkedIn network is my biggest audience. I use it to post random thoughts and whatnot, because it's more fun when you know there's an audience. I rarely get any views or likes though.

nostrademons 3y ago
Is it actually an audience if nobody's viewing it?
- vagab0nd 3y ago
  I need to get it out anyway. If there's a better option I'd use it.
  - digging 3y ago
    You could just make your own blog if you don't care about readership. Would probably be better for the longevity.
  - criddell 3y ago
    Get a dog and every day take it on a long walk-and-talk where you tell your dog all your hot takes and random thoughts. Your dog will look forward to this, will look for you on days when you forget or think you are too busy for the walk-and-talk, and as a side benefit, you will get a little exercise, some sunshine, and fresh air. It can also help clarify your thinking. If you can't convince your dog that technical debt is widely misunderstood, then how will you convince your colleagues?
  - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
    If it’s not causing you any issues then I’m sure it’s fine, but this seems like an abuse of the word ‘need’.

Xenoamorphous 3y ago

It’s a humble-bragging cesspit.

ogn3rd 3y ago
It really is!

beanjuiceII 3y ago

turning into? I left it years ago because it already became that

btgeekboy 3y ago

There are monthly who’s hiring and who wants to be hired threads that seem to fill that niche.

codeTired 3y ago
Unfortunately my tech stack isn’t very popular with HN, SQL/C#. Maybe it’s time to reskill.
- codegeek 3y ago
  Naah. C# and .NET is solid. I am doubling down on it even for startups. Doing my next product in it.
  - zeroCalories 3y ago
    I think his point is valid though. While I see C# listed all the time on normal job posting sites, on HN it's always the sexy meme languages like Rust and Python.
    - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
      None of those are “meme” languages. I appreciate Python started-off as a toy-like language - but its utility as a glue-language for serious number-crunching (see: how almost all ML projects involve Python somehow) and the admirable community surrounding it means its credibility is established. The worst thing anyone can say about Python is that it’s the new VBA. Rust is the new C++ - Microsoft wouldn’t be investing tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars in enabling Rust for Windows drivers if it wasn’t serious. (Whereas it’s Zig and Carbon where I have concerns about adoption and longevity: the post-C ecosystem isn’t large enough to sustain three languages that overlap each other so much)
      - eesmith 3y ago
        > Python started-off as a toy-like language It did not. It started as a language do system administration for the Amoeba operating system. Here's part of the README for the first public release (0.9p1, available from python.org): "This is Python, an extensible interpreted programming language that combines remarkable power with very clear syntax." "Python can be used instead of shell, Awk or Perl scripts, to write prototypes of real applications, or as an extension language of large systems, you name it."

codegeek 3y ago

Yep. Check out /r/linkedinlunatics

supportengineer 3y ago
Any overlap with /r/ImTheMainCharacter ?

mrbonner 3y ago

Yeah mine news feed has turned into a condescending stream of thoughts buried under the empathy offering agendas.

pydry 3y ago
Or this: https://d2u3dcdbebyaiu.cloudfront.net/uploads/atch_img/442/f79224d64dc96a1021f0874c2d365363_res.jpeg https://d2u3dcdbebyaiu.cloudfront.net/uploads/atch_img/442/f...
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  Is there a name for the specific kind of moderate-level of mental anguish I felt when reading that?
  - regularjack 3y ago
    Cringe
  - f1shy 3y ago
    In german and spanish there is an expression for shaming for others. Fremdschāmen / Verguenza ajena. In english cringe, maybe?
  - adonovan 3y ago
    "Consultant"
    - netsharc 3y ago
      The sad thing is if that guy was doing a presentation, there'd be middle managers and C-Level people nodding while being inspired...
  - eecc 3y ago
    Vicarious embarrassment
  - deleted 3y ago

LightBug1 3y ago

Worse than that. For me, in recent months, the volume of adverts and 'suggested''s feels like it's been throttled up so much that it's completely overwhelming the majority of my personal networks output ... which is the only reason I'm there. Potential RIP in a matter of weeks/months ... frustrating.

fullshark 3y ago

People are now posting about politics there. That's the death knell imo.

marcod 3y ago
Tell me one area that has not gotten more political or partisan in recent years.
- olyjohn 3y ago
  Are you actually defending posting that trash on LinkedIn?
  - marcod 3y ago
    I'm not a fan of this development, though Msft invited it with their social-mediaization of Linked In ...
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  I actually tried to think of one and struggled… I host a weekly open-mic at a local bar (mostly music but some standup and poetry) and more and more often I’ve had to figure out how to gracefully handle a performer using some of their 6-10 minutes to share their not-as-popular-as-they-might think political takes or commentary. And it should be handled gracefully, because I’m not in the business of banning political content from the contents of poetry or standup or lyrics or whatever. Both from all sides I wish there was a bit more of a shared cultural understanding or reservation towards divisive political topics.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
leviathant 3y ago
People have been posting about politics there for a very long time; it's only just starting to bubble up into your timeline, I suppose. Don't hesitate to mute accounts. For example, blocking Gary Vee almost single-handedly made my LinkedIn feed usable again. I never followed him or any of his pages to begin with, but enough of my connections embarrassingly engage with those kinds of posts that it cluttered everything up. Go to the source and pull out the root of the problem. re: politics, there are one or two LinkedIn entities that post the most mildly progressive of content, and it's the knuckle-draggers in the comments that made me block these pages.

IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago

the irony is that your comment is being "liked" in droves , lol

draugadrotten 3y ago

The business model of linkedIn is a bit messed up. It pretends to offer something to you, the individual. Yet you are not paying for the site, so you are part of the product not the customer. The real customers are companies (advertising) and recruiters (self-described raw meat to be had). However, linkedIn seems to have messed up with that business model as well. Because recruiters wants recruits - not just a mailing list of people who are not interested. This leaves only the advertisers, thus turning even more recruits from visiting the site, therefore making the site less interesting to recruiters. A downward spiral, really. Recent offerings of linkedin Learning seems to be attempts to mitigate this but at the core of the problem really is that the site offers very little value to recruits. Maybe there are some smart business model people around that could fix that, who knows. The space is ready for dis-ruption.

teekert 3y ago

I made the mistake of answering to an antivax post (something like “yeah “we” survived the Spanish flu and other pandemics but always at a horrible cost.” And my feed turned awful, I report posts on a regular basis now. Other than that, it’s still the way to contact anyone, I mean anyone I remotely know or knew.

ghaff 3y ago
>it’s still the way to contact anyone Yeah. I usually try other means first but if I don't have or can't find what seems like a reliable email address, LinkedIn is a pretty good avenue--especially with so many people having largely migrated asway from Twitter and Facebook.

tombert 3y ago

It's extremely frustrating, because in 2023 you're sort of expected to have a linkedin (some job applications even require it!), but people have started treating it like the next FaceBook. From 2020-2022 I saw a lot of COVID conspiracy theories and political memes being posted, and I wanted to respond to them, but since LinkedIn is basically a resume, I withheld responding, for the same reason that I don't put my voting history directly on my resume. Though honestly the worst part is the "inspiration porn" that people post on there all the time, nearly all of which reduce to "the job market is tough, but don't give up because it gets easy!!!". When you point out that it, in fact, does not ever get "easy" to wake up to 30 rejection emails every morning, they either try and sell you on some meditation routine, tell you that you have a bad attitude, or just block you. Honestly, it really is the absolute worst platform that I am stuck using. There are worse websites, obviously, but no one is forcing me to go to 4chan or The Daily Stormer every day.

nilespotter 3y ago
[flagged]
- hef19898 3y ago
  None?
- pc86 3y ago
  You have missed the point by a fantastically, awe-inspiring amount.
- irrational 3y ago
  Hindsight is 20/20. Looking back we see... that none of them were true.
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - 3y ago

taeric 3y ago

I think I notice that every time I have to login. Isn't exactly new, is it? I'm curious what "decent use" you used to get from it? That you used to be contacted by better fit jobs? Were you finding contract positions? Or hopping from a full time to another full time? It has to be tough, as I imagine that most folks aren't actively looking for a job except for when they don't have one. I try and respond politely to any contacts I get, but there have been times I was overwhelmed.

codeTired 3y ago
The use was mostly getting decent hits from recruiters and the feed when I opened the page didn’t want to make me vomit. I am frankly at a point where I realized internet became an extremely toxic place full of dark patterns. I miss days of nerds making sites to share informations and hobbies.
- taeric 3y ago
  Makes sense, I think. I, sadly, never remember LinkedIn not doing that. I think I can find a tweet or other journal entry talking about how awkward the site is every time I ever find myself using it. Shame, as I do want to keep in touch with friends from old jobs. Doesn't feel like a good way to do it, though.

MikusR 3y ago

>Memes and videos are now being posted Was there a time when it was not like this? At least 12 years ago it was the same.

graypegg 3y ago

It really is this group of maybe max 10000 people all boasting to each other, interspersed with “I got laid off, available to hire!”. It’s a pretty depressing place. I wonder what the strategic plan Microsoft had in mind originally was? Was it really as simple as “we are all about business, that is the business network”?

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
> I wonder what the strategic plan Microsoft had in mind originally was? Was it really as simple as “we are all about business, that is the business network”? I thought that’s what they bought Yammer for - but then they also bought LinkedIn.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago

> Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform? Memes and videos are now being posted. It's also gotten pretty political. If I cared about your political hot takes - I'd be on Facebook. Though this seems to be permeating everywhere, even to HN - even though the mods try their best to keep it out.

notjoemama 3y ago

If this adds a humorous twist on it for you, I saw someone describe it as like a dating site except it’s women trying to contact men and men ghosting them.

paulcrecruiter 3y ago
It's actually even more funny than this: it's beautiful women trying to contact nerdy men and getting ghosted by them :)
- anilmr 3y ago
  lol, https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-hotz-b3866476/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-hotz-b3866476/ - George Hotz of comma.ai uses LinkedIn for dating ;)
  - jackbravo 3y ago
    I thought this was a joke, but then he puts it right in his profile: > PLEASE READ PROFILE. While some people use LinkedIn for "networking" and advertising their "personal brand," I use this site exclusively as a dating platform. If you are intelligent, attractive, female, in or visiting San Diego, and perhaps a bit out of the norm, I might be interested. Send me a message and invite me out for a drink! (and please make it clear you are asking me on a date) All non-dating related messages will be ignored. But at the same time seems like it is a failed platform for him too: > UPDATE. LinkedIn is too full of faux career climbers and not enough dating opportunity. Follow me on Instagram @georgehotz
    - anilmr 3y ago
      haha, guess LinkedIn didn't help him with dating.
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      That explains why they were asking for Putman scores when hiring engineers around the time they started.

zeroCalories 3y ago

> Can someone please develop hacker news type basic site but for jobs? No memes, no dark patterns, no likes. Isn't that what sites like indeed are?

amelius 3y ago

> Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform? As someone who didn't bother to curate their LinkedIn account all I can say is: This is great news! Now my career opportunities are again the same as everybody else's.

wayfinder 3y ago

Well most people see LinkedIn as a central place to store resumes. Being everyone’s free storage unit does not generally make money. So they have to turn the resume storage part into a loss leader and turn a profit some other way. Being a place to list job postings is the most obvious but they have competition already. Throwing on ads will make money but LinkedIn isn’t a site most people stick around on. Turning LinkedIn into a social media site keeps people on the site so the ads work, but it’s a pretty ugly way to do it. The type of people who are actually going to use LinkedIn like Facebook is probably the worst kind of people you want sticking around too. LinkedIn could have stayed a small site with a small team but they got started by getting money from investors. Now they have other people to answer too.

ghaff 3y ago
>Well most people see LinkedIn as a central place to store resumes. Or as a self-updating Rolodex of which there were quite a few at one point. Obviously it can serve other purposes as well but that's all I've ever used it for.

jlarocco 3y ago

> Recruiters contacting me with “perfect fit” position in languages not on my profile. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but not everybody is bothered by that. Most languages popular nowadays (C#, Javascript/Typescript, Java, C++, etc.) are popular partly because most devs can jump between them pretty easily. Definitely not defending Linkedin, though. A coworker of mine writes posts about his stance on abortion. I don't know what Linkedin's policy is about it, but it's super awkward, and I just stay far away.

abirch 3y ago
LinkedIn after 2020: it's the new proctologist as a service that nobody wants.
radiator 3y ago
I thought he actually meant that they contact him in foreign languages.
nsxwolf 3y ago
On multiple occasions I have responded to a "perfect fit" type message on a tech stack mismatch, only to have it lead to a phone screen where everyone is confused why we're talking.
- jlarocco 3y ago
  Depends on the situation. My current job is primarily using a new-to-me language (C#) on a platform I hadn't used in 10 years (Windows), and though I have some buyers remorse (Windows is still terrible), everybody was on the same page about my skills, I've picked up C# easily enough, and it's worked out fine so far.
CoastalCoder 3y ago
> A coworker of mine writes posts about his stance on abortion. Pro or against? [That was a joke. Please don't answer.]
- 3y ago

gopher2000 3y ago

> Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform? This has been the case for years, IMO. I noticed a rampant increase in it through the 2016 election and everything that followed.

JohnFen 3y ago

I abandoned LinkedIn years ago because of the incessant bottom-feeder recruiter spam it got me. I've only grown happier with that decision over time.

spacemadness 3y ago

It’s been like this for many years now. I can’t really remember it otherwise. I’ve lost respect for some colleagues after seeing all the self congratulatory posting that exaggerates what happened and long-winded work stories on their profiles. I’m done with giving folks a pass at this stage on their Linkedin ladder climbing nonsense. Like most social media it’s a giant circlejerk just with a white collar lean.

DoesntMatter22 3y ago
I think it's even worse than that. I've seen a lot of crazy political discussions there where people, fully identifiable, are just losing their minds, saying racist stuff even. I have no idea why people would be willing to risk their jobs like that but I see people from Fortune 50 companies doing it. Crazy
- spacemadness 3y ago
  That is something. I stopped reading it entirely sometime last year but don’t recall the crazy uncle effect. What was mentioned sounded similar to what I experienced, including the memes—-but I didn’t realize it was sinking so low in becoming Reddit on a bad day without the anonymity.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    [dead]
  - DoesntMatter22 3y ago
    Literally it was worse than almost anything I've seen on reddit. Idk if they put a stop to it or not but it was madness
- abawany 3y ago
  And reporting blatant garbage always results in 'we don't think there is a problem here' response from LI.

kylestlb 3y ago

always has been :)

alpn 3y ago

I'm working on https://hackerli.st https://hackerli.st to do exactly that, rolling out jobs this week.

Zaheer 3y ago

Have you tried Levels.fyi? https://www.levels.fyi/jobs https://www.levels.fyi/jobs Lmk if you have any feedback as well!

saos 3y ago

It’s still great for finding roles and that’s it. I never update my profile. Only use it when I’m on the hunt for a new role.

femiagbabiaka 3y ago

Hacker news is already the hacker news type site for jobs IMO.

latexr 3y ago

> Can someone please develop hacker news type basic site but for jobs? https://hnhiring.com https://hnhiring.com

johnnyanmac 3y ago

It's not very subtle. I watched a 2 minute clip of 5 men working together to save a dog from a river. And that was loosely connected to a generic post about how team work is effective. Sometime in the last 5 years LinkedIn just became a slightly more formal variant of FB/Instagram. >Can someone please develop hacker news type basic site but for jobs HN does have a job board: https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs And monthly there is a "Who's hiring" and "Who wants to be hired" thread automatically posted. Nothing for my domain there but I check it a few times a year.

yumraj 3y ago
> HN does have a job board: That’s not a generic job board. It’s only for YC companies.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Yeah, the linked job board is only for YC. The monthly threads are generic, though. And decently active.
gowld 3y ago
If that's the video of the construction-worker looking guys pulling the dog from a canal-looking waterway, that video was awesome.

gumby 3y ago

You can just use it in the original way: simply look at profiles, make the occasional requested intro for someone you actually know to someone you actually know, and maintain your resume. I have ignored the drive to turn it into a social network and it pretty much works the same as it did when it started. For example, when I have a meeting with someone I always look them up on LI first, to see if we have something in common.

winphone1974 3y ago
I agree! I think it's actually easier to avoid the big, weak network because it started as a professional tool. I curate my connections and don't accept every recruiter or sales person who sees it as yet another marketing channel. It's been invaluable for reaching out to my former coworkers to try and recruit them

duxup 3y ago

My perception was that… at least 5+ years ago. I’m on there only if I need a job, otherwise it is dead to me. There is no content I have any interest in on there.

rmk 3y ago

I enjoy visiting shlinkedin.com from time to time!

JustLurking2022 3y ago

My solution is aggressively unfollowing or disconnecting from people. There may still be a lot of low value interactions, but at least I don't have to see them.

anilmr 3y ago
LinkedIn has been showing algorithmic feed from 1st, 2nd, & 3rd degree connections for a while, but they recently started aggressively showing out of network content for engagement. So unfollowing might help to filter out speicific people, but it won't stop your feed from getting cluttered with unrelated posts from some random person.

pseudotrash 3y ago

The recruiter spam and self promoting content from people who talk like they got 3 mortgages and 4 ex-spouses or ... -the opposite- absolute silence and disdain of a crowd that never posts these thoughts under their real name (and rant on HN or twitter instead speaking their truth on LinkedIn) has always been deafening. In the age of Musk's twitter it is somewhat peculiar that LinkedIn ended up as the last social media platform where interesting posts can be discovered provided you don't "blind-follow" and follow the right people. None of this will work for those who expect it to work as some kind of magic garden where recruiters will present only what is relevant to you. That LinkedIn though never existed in the first place.

charles_f 3y ago

I spent some time a while back to "unfollow" everyone on linkedin apart from a very few select individuals. I unfollow people by default everytime I have a new connection. My wall is uneventful, but at least I don't feel like I'm going to facebook everytime I connect (which is rare)

ge96 3y ago
I have to know/worked with the person or if they're a recruiter (to connect).
CoastalCoder 3y ago
Kind of related: One day I decided to rapid-fire dismiss all of the "suggested connections" that LinkedIn was putting in front of me. I probably dismissed 200 in a single sitting. The next day(?), I got a warning from LinkedIn that my account was being audited for misuse or some such thing. Although I was manually dismissing those suggestions, I'm guessing it tripped some bot-detector or something.

CoastalCoder 3y ago

There's one thing LinkedIn gets very right about job searches: remembering if I've indicated that I'm not interested in a particular job posting. That massively improves the signal-to-noise ratio over e.g. Google, who's daily updates show me mostly the same jobs from one day to the next.

IlPeach 3y ago
Oh right and then it suggests me the exact same job ad and slightly grays it out. What. The. Hell.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  I could see the ability to re-visit such postings being useful on occasion. No idea what LinkedIn's reasons are, but I think grayed-out is good enough. If nothing else, it's light-years beyond Google's approach.

acjohnson55 3y ago

Yes, but I also find it's one of the best remaining social media platforms for talking about craft. Unfortunately, it tends to suffer from toxic positivity that's almost the inverse of Twitter's ability to incite fights. There's almost an implicit "let's make each other look good" dynamic. Although, you do occasionally see controversial engagement bait too.

tayo42 3y ago
That's pretty much corporate culture? Have you worked anywhere that wasn't like that?

vmfunction 3y ago

I have not touched LinkedIn since MS took over. And I'm not surprised by what it has become. Pretty much when a big corp takes over a social media this can be expected. Please get off LinkedIn. It is a cancer of digital society.

Aleksdev 3y ago
That’s not an option for many. Some jobs require LinkedIn just to apply!

Dalewyn 3y ago

>Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform? Seeing as it's somehow the only social network to spam my email (I never even touched LinkedIn) endlessly? Yeah, it's been shit for many years. Even by social media standards.

sgerenser 3y ago

Replying for better reach.

pronik 3y ago

Probably very few people here are familiar with Xing, the German "business networking site". I was convinced LinkedIn would eat Xing's lunch when they launched in Germany, since the same happened pretty fast to Facebook and its local clone (StudiVZ). However, it hasn't happened then and only now some small tendency for people to prefer LinkedIn can be noticed, but mostly because of international contacts and not because the site is all that great. Anyway, in the last couple of years, Xing also mutated from a business contact network to a wanna-be Facebook social network, with memes, neurotic posting, outreach metrics etc. Instead of being a contact backbone, it's become an attention leech, basically the same experience as you describe for LinkedIn. At least in case of Xing, it's more or less known that they have been infested by product managers for a long time, whose only metric for success has ever been "innovation (tm)", so it's explainable, but still stupid. I suppose same could be happening at LinkedIn, even though they never have been good to begin with, palatable at most.

lr4444lr 3y ago

It's an annoying layer on top, but I think the core (highly searchable centralized network of job seekers and employers) is still very valuable.

ern 3y ago

I've hibernated my LinkedIn profile after I was stalked by an unstable bank employee who I had a bad interaction with: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37417397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37417397 Until their privacy and visibility policies are put on par with other social media platforms, I'm going to use it strictly for job-hunting when needed.

musha68k 3y ago

It has always been that way to me. Also over-run with recruiters.

hintymad 3y ago

This reminds me of the hay days of Bolt. For ever new hire, their managers and directors and VPs and what not would post something effusive and congratulatory. It's kinda comical and tiring.

jredwards 3y ago

I think everyone has noticed this. There's a popular subreddit called r/LinkedInLunatics which follows some of the insane things people post there.

tracerbulletx 3y ago

Between that and the "I've been unemployed for 5 months and am about to lose my house" posts with 1000 replies telling them how to network better, it's very very depressing.

nvy 3y ago

>Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform? It's always been a shitty social media platform. It's entirely performative; just people yeeting artificial pseudo blog posts out into the ether, all virtue-signalling past each other. LinkedIn is one of the worst websites I can think of.

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zetsurin 3y ago

According to this it's inevitable: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

thefascistleft 3y ago

[dead]

jader201 3y ago

I’m not much on social media as it is (HN is about the only one left that I still visit regularly), but even when I was doing _some_ social media, it was Twitter and _rarely_ Facebook, but never LinkedIn. Not for years. The last time I probably used LinkedIn for anything was networking some when I changed jobs (almost 10 years ago). Unless you hop jobs a lot, I just don’t see how it adds any value.

mbrochh 3y ago

The site has always been the cancer that you described here. No idea how you ever got decent use out of it.

ricardobayes 3y ago

For me the last nail in the coffin was showing unfiltered images of human remains - from the latest middle eastern conflict. No trigger warning, no NSFW filter, nothing. That's unacceptable.

Blackstrat 3y ago

Yes and it was as predictable as sunrise after Microsoft acquired them. Formally, I was a paid subscriber and conducted a good bit of business via LinedIn. After Microsoft acquired them, I canceled and now visit LinkedIn infrequently, and usually then only in response to a direct message. Those on the previous thread cheering the prospects from Microsoft's acquisition of Activision/Blizzard are likely to be disappointed in the outcome as well.

merlindru 3y ago

> Can someone please develop hacker news type basic site but for jobs? No memes, no dark patterns, no likes. I'm building flexible.dev that eventually will be _exactly_ this! Right now there are no comments, want to add those soon. The job feed is curated (manually, eventually automatically) from Reddit and HN "Who's hiring" posts.

codeTired 3y ago
Nice! The name implies the jobs will be flexible? I need some more of those.