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> [job] opportunities for engineers that actually care Were those job listings from SO contributors, rather than HR departments?

pjmlp 1y ago
I am not aware how the job board submissions worked.
healsdata 1y ago
Nope. It worked like other sites where you pay a fee and they host your job listing. The one difference was that the "Joel Test" was part of each post. Early on, the job posts were low volume, high quality. I assume this was because it was only SO users who thought to advertise there. But over time, they built a sales team and ended up with the same posts as everyone else.
yallpendantools 1y ago
I have an amusing anecdote to share. It's definitely related to your question but, anecdotes being what they are, I'm not presenting it as any form of final word on the matter. I got my current job through the SO job board. When I applied, the first person to reply to my application was the technical lead of the role. He was also deeply involved in my hiring process, present at even the HR interview. He was also very hands-on (in a good way) during my onboarding. In one of the first actual technical tasks he set me on, I was doing the usual SO research when I happened upon an important caveat with an orange amount of upvotes in one of the answers' comments. It was posted by my technical lead. Our hiring practices have changed since. We now have the usual indirection layers of "Talent Acquisition Consultants". From what I know of the company now, posting on SO Jobs was very likely the initiative of my first TL. ---- I've always had the impression that most of the non-$BIGCORP posters on SO Jobs were there because they had a certain affinity for engineering. I've been to other interviews from companies posting there and while I didn't always end up talking to a technical committee, even the "usual headhunters" were surprisingly[1] technically-literate. Maybe I just got lucky. Maybe it was the zeitgeist of the 2010s. Most likely a combination of both. Though I'm still pretty satisfied with my current job, I was genuinely disappointed when they shutdown SO Jobs. [1] "surprisingly" is carrying a lot of YMMV-weight in this statement.
- fuzzzerd 1y ago
  I had a aimilar situation with SO Jobs, but I was the technical lead, but it was very similar. I was able to manage the listing, was involved throughout the hiring and onboarding process. Within his first year, he ended up finding one of my answers on SO as well. Definitely disappointing they shut down the job board, because the quality of candidates was higher than any other board we've used since.

pjmlp 1y ago

I am not aware how the job board submissions worked.

healsdata 1y ago

Nope. It worked like other sites where you pay a fee and they host your job listing. The one difference was that the "Joel Test" was part of each post. Early on, the job posts were low volume, high quality. I assume this was because it was only SO users who thought to advertise there. But over time, they built a sales team and ended up with the same posts as everyone else.

yallpendantools 1y ago

I have an amusing anecdote to share. It's definitely related to your question but, anecdotes being what they are, I'm not presenting it as any form of final word on the matter. I got my current job through the SO job board. When I applied, the first person to reply to my application was the technical lead of the role. He was also deeply involved in my hiring process, present at even the HR interview. He was also very hands-on (in a good way) during my onboarding. In one of the first actual technical tasks he set me on, I was doing the usual SO research when I happened upon an important caveat with an orange amount of upvotes in one of the answers' comments. It was posted by my technical lead. Our hiring practices have changed since. We now have the usual indirection layers of "Talent Acquisition Consultants". From what I know of the company now, posting on SO Jobs was very likely the initiative of my first TL. ---- I've always had the impression that most of the non-$BIGCORP posters on SO Jobs were there because they had a certain affinity for engineering. I've been to other interviews from companies posting there and while I didn't always end up talking to a technical committee, even the "usual headhunters" were surprisingly[1] technically-literate. Maybe I just got lucky. Maybe it was the zeitgeist of the 2010s. Most likely a combination of both. Though I'm still pretty satisfied with my current job, I was genuinely disappointed when they shutdown SO Jobs. [1] "surprisingly" is carrying a lot of YMMV-weight in this statement.

fuzzzerd 1y ago
I had a aimilar situation with SO Jobs, but I was the technical lead, but it was very similar. I was able to manage the listing, was involved throughout the hiring and onboarding process. Within his first year, he ended up finding one of my answers on SO as well. Definitely disappointing they shut down the job board, because the quality of candidates was higher than any other board we've used since.