Many open source projects hire in exactly the same way: they look at their pool of enthusiastic community members and hire them when positions become available.

Many open source projects hire in exactly the same way: they look at their pool of enthusiastic community members and hire them when positions become available. DuckDuckGo[0] comes to mind. [0] https://duck.co/help/company/hiring https://duck.co/help/company/hiring Then there are companies like Automattic[1] (the parent of Wordpress.com) and Matasano[2] that hire based on work samples. [1] http://automattic.com/work-with-us/ http://automattic.com/work-with-us/ [2] http://matasano.com/careers/ http://matasano.com/careers/ Zappos is not that far off when you consider that all they are looking for is a little prior interaction with their potential hires.