There was a similar discussion on HN in 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17791766
I used the "Who's Hiring" monthly thread on Hacker News. To be perfectly honest, it's the best "job board" I've ever used for tech jobs.
In my case, it was during Covid. Unemployment benefits were good enough that I wasn't eating into my savings. Every month, I would spend a few hours going through the thread, narrow it down to about 10-15 good postings, and see where it went. Hiring was also slow at the time.
The thing that I really liked about the job board here is that, almost every time, my initial contact was with a hiring manager or someone who'd I'd work very closely with. The job descriptions also get to the point quickly, unlike most job boards where the job description is 1-2 pages of 80% fluff.
For awhile I had the "open for work" flag on my LinkedIn profile. I got a lot of great outreaches that way, (and recently declined a very good offer,) but they tend to be bigger companies. (FWIW: Any time someone reaches out to me on LinkedIn with a vague "We might have matches for you, sign up and we might follow up with you" request, I flag them as SPAM.)
Resorted to technique of Guerilla marketing for job hunters: https://www.gm4jh.com/ . Made a list of the top 4 companies that were interesting to me, and started cold-calling. Started a job at the top of the list 2 months later. I did have to take a job for which I was overqualified; but got my foot in the door. 7 years and 3 promotions later I've got a job that's a near perfect fit.
The benefit of GM4JH is it builds a network you can always go back to. Can't recommend it enough.
A water utility in Spain spun off a start up called Qatium [2] and they used my library as the engine of their simulations and asked me to join.
I am Brazilian, no intention to relocate, but I want to find a job at an American company because they pay way better (even more considering the exchange rate of the Brazilian Real vs US Dollar in the last couple of years). So I need to find US companies that hire globally remote. That's a niche. It got larger with the pandemic, but still a niche. This niche is almost all times small, VC-funded startups. From 5 to 20 employees usually, definitely not more than 100 employees. Larger companies, when they hire remote, they hire remote US only, or where they have offices. And VC-funded pays better than non-VC-funded (like bootstrapped companies or agencies).
I find these companies on AngelList and HN's Who is hiring. Definitely not on LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, etc. Even when they do announce a job post on those places, they are among thousands and thousands of job posts of places that would never hire me (or pay what I want). No point in looking for jobs in those places.
Also, I don't have that big of a network in IT. I changed careers five years ago. The few developers with whom I have some connection still all work here in Brazil. So it's always a cold start.
I'd just done back-to-back military tours in locations with no Chik-Fil-A and was following the GPS to the nearest location by our new house and happened to drive by my current job's campus and thought "wow, that looks like a cool place to work, it has giant radio dishes and an observatory on the roof!" A few years later I got out of the military and went straight to work there.
I don't know what "using my network" would even mean - just limit myself to a handful of companies (that I know nothing about) and cold-message people that I haven't spoked to in months/years so they can maybe check if there are open positions (which I could have looked up on the company's career page) and then can maybe refer me? Every part of it sounds weird, the whole "find a job through your network" is concept from an ideal world where I actively maintain relationships with many people in great companies that I want to work at. I don't know how many people are in that situation but I'm not one of them.
Cold applying to a job posting whether it be on LinkedIn or the company's site has always resulted in being ignored or getting swiftly rejected with a generic reason.
Trying to use my network has gotten me to the interview stage, but from that point on it's no different from going through a recruiter - you get the typical leetcode interview. In my case, I've failed all the leetcode interviews I've gotten through my network, so my success rate there is 0%.
Jobs, I've found can come from anywhere. It's important to keep a good network of people who know you - on as many platforms as you want. The more you're "out there" and the more relationships you build is the key imo.
I don’t think hackathons are particularly unique, I’d abstract this to “be visible and known in your tech community”.
I'm still there 25 years later.
The quality of recruiters seems to be dependent on your history and who you are. I don't tend to get flooded by FAANG recruiters or recruiters at cool companies (well Amazon has reached out to me, but that's just makes me more wary). Most of the recruiters I get tend to be offering more or less the same thing I've been doing the past several years, just with more or less pay and maybe a difference in scenery.
For my current job the same engineer I talked to (who was now a co-founder at a startup) contacted me over LinkedIn asking about getting lunch. I got lunch with him, and I had an offer later that day.
Previous job: Friend in real life said they got contacted by a recruiter and that I'd be a good fit so referred me. Recruiter worked for the company directly, wasn't a 3rd party.
Previous previous job: Applied for open job posting from an online job board (I forget which one). Ended up being through a local 3rd party recruiter.
First job: College on-campus job fair and on-campus interviews.
Based on my experience, as you progress through your career it feels like your network will start to naturally take over from other ways of finding/applying for jobs. If you're still early career, I wouldn't hesitate to put yourself out there to anyone and everyone who has an open job which sounds interesting. Use the interviews to find out if you're a good fit.
It worked really well.
1. The conditions of her offer were true (a few times I got a lower offer than the one in the initial message)
2. If I got an email/message from the CEO/CTO or someone with a higher position in the company to prove that the origin was real.
Three months later I'm working in a startup remotely and I couldn't be happier, so my silly advice: do not ignore messages on Linkedin!
I was on a massive lucky streak at the time or something, applied interviewed and started the job within a week of starting the search
Converted them (web agency) from SFTP to CI/CD in my first week and I've been the go-to nerd since.. oh wow I've been there 6 years now haha
Multiple hats size company so it's PHP dev and sysadmin mainly but I'm up for trying any hat on if it's not urgent
/waffle
But my search strategy changed over time.
1. My network was much smaller 10 years ago and I knew a lot less local companies.
Now I also Google around for companies I would like to work for. Like Google, GitHub, Netflix etc.
I also research what company is doing what I think is good for society like agriculture and automatiosation.
Currently I'm slightly stuck as my company allows remote work a d I want to buy a farm. So I'm not sure if I can jump continents (like USA) to work on bigger agriculture projects or if the farm and remote work will be more of my thing.
I also focus much more on the people I would work with and ask about the team etc.
But I also looked through ALL job postings in my city to get a better feeling what is out there. Probably I read 1000 job postings last time I was searching.
My Tipp: start with one two super unrealistic dream job companies than move to your top choice more realistic companies.
You don't want to get an offer from your 5th choice while still stuck in the hiring process for your dream job.
I would still quit a new job if the Dre job suddenly comes up.
The news eventually got to me, and even if I didn't know him personally, I got in touch because 1) it wasn't a tech company (I really don't want to work in a FANG in the bay area, I don't like the vibes) 2) I didn't want to do coding interviews (I've done cool stuff, check my github, we can talk shop, but nope I'm not going to work for free)
After a video chat with the team lead and a lunch with the founder, I decided to join. I like it there. My gut feeling was good right from the start, and I'm happy I trusted my feelings.
The only one time I did some coding interview (+ take home!), it gave me really bad vibes, especially when try tried months later to get me to sign a NDA/IP release form.
I was like... no? I mean, they had a chance. If they want a license to put in production what I did, they can pay my consulting rate. And BTW, that was a YC company...
After two years of fully remote work, I was let go from my last job during covid when they tried to recall everyone back to the office and I couldn't (moved in with a partner in another state).
Looked around on local job boards (Craigslist, Indeed, Monster, etc.) and some remote opportunities that looked interesting, customized a cover letter and resume for them, and sent them away. Ended up getting a couple interviews with all of them, but only one sent me an offer. Luckily, it was the one in the town I lived in, which I preferred over fully-remote work anyhow.
The whole process took only about a month from submitting resumes to accepting an offer.
This was very different from the last time I looked for a job, which took like 6-8 months :( That was before covid though.
At the time I was actively looking. I applied for multiple jobs I found in several different places. Sometimes I got some interviews, sometimes I didn't. But no offers (well, one a few months ago that I turned down).
He's not my manager today but he definitely outranks me in the company :)
I've also had surprising success cold emailing small companies in my research field. I didn't take the offer in the end, but I'd probably try again in the future.
Most often I've applied directly.
Sometimes with a small dialogue first with someone within the company that I knew.
I've never used a recruiter. I did talk to one, but they seemed too much in the pocket of one employer.
I really wish next one could be big tech but it seems ever the more elusive… I just want to be in a proper engineering culture for once instead of having to fight for the basics…
Quite a few devs communities have such channels and what I appreciate about slack is the ability to start a quick chat with the poster in an informal way, get a referral and overall skip the whole ATS resume black hole.
New Job - Told people in my network I was looking and let people refer me.
That said, I got my first (and longest tenured) job by applying to a random "who's hiring interns" post on HN.
Current one was a company recruiter who found me on LinkedIn. On the previous two I was found by my managers to be, again, on LinkedIn. Before that, I found the company and applied (on LinkedIn). Before that, a freelance recruiter found me on a retrocomputing community.
Interestingly enough, my first job was also found online, on a BBS, with further conversation happening on a Minitel-based instant messaging app.
1) LinkedIn 2) HN monthly hiring thread 3) Personal Portfolio / blog 4) GitHub
Main consistency about your bio across all platforms and keep engaging with subscribers or followers.
People do notice your activities and reach out to you when need arises.
Kinda stings to think about it happening that way, but it's work that isn't dread-inducing, so I'll take it :)
Once you find a couple of good ones and make sure to have a coffee or something with them from time to time, you can get a really good feel for what's out there and where you should be aiming your efforts.
Now that there are so many remote positions, it is definitely the best place for software jobs for the discerning developer. I went through the hundreds and found a select few that met my criteria (open source, multi language, not too big, software focused company, etc).
I've used my network a few times in the past which is a great way to get a job doing exactly what you're already doing someplace else. Since I was sick of what I was doing (digital agency) my network was useless.
Not a fan of going through with (external) recruiters, as their interest doesn't always align with yours.
Current gig also via a random LinkedIn connection to a recruiter despite my profile being woefully out of date.
In truth, industry referrals are themselves a part of the compensation package, as they give (generally male) more-senior engineers social leverage over anyone who wants a piece of the pie.
I played the game but I hate the game.
All the same, doing so tripled my income and moved to the USA.
--
Postscriptum:
My recommendation to industry: abolish the referral system. It's shockingly close to the recruitment pattern used in MLM schemes -- in this case, my contact got a bonus from "helping" with my recruitment.
Imagine if surgeons were hired like this.
I don’t live in a hot tech market area - I am pretty sure most companies here use public boards to fill most of their developer positions.
My colleague interviewed and got hired. The hiring manager contacted through all his relevant LinkedIn relations.
Current: local Slack group
I built a video capture system for the Commodore Amiga as a neat side project for that lead to me working on Transputers that formed the heart of a non-linear editing system (no interview)
The Transputers were really fast, so I wrote some neat 3D demos that ran on the Transputer boards in the Amiga & PC => contract work with SGI (no interview)
Wrote a demo for the SGI video capture system to scan a magazine at high resolution => machine vision & robotics that was changing the printing industry (no interview)
Wrote a C compiler for an 8-bit micro so I could learn C => leads to writing a C compiler for a 16-bit micro at a company (no interview)
Created a "smart home dashboard" for a side-project => leads to writing a mobile app to manage a WiFi router => leads to becoming Lead Firmware Engineer on the project (no interview)
I wrote some stuff on the Unity3D forums => game development job offer (no interview)
Ran a number of in-person developer meet-ups over the years => various jobs & offers & contract gigs (no interview)
Got asked by a friend to teach a class on device driver development at USC, video recorded it, he sent it to his friend at Intel => wind up teaching many, many week long, rocket-science level classes on Linux & Android & device driver development & board bring-up at Intel (no interview)
Recorded all of my lectures at Intel, shared them with a friend at Facebook who was trying to get in to device driver development => Which lead to me teaching a couple of classes at Facebook (no interview)
Asked to critique a ReactNative class at Facebook due to my other teaching there => Which lead to me consulting/contracting for Facebook for a few years (no interview)
Video tape my classes at Facebook, which get shared with people at Microsoft & Apple without my knowledge => end up consulting and teaching at both Microsoft & Apple (no interview)
Created a bot for a popular MMORPG coupled with machine vision and some AI techniques => contract job to detect bots in the self-same popular MMORPG (no interview)
I created a C# package and published it that done some fancy stuff with random numbers => company hired me to work on their project that used the library (that was an "interesting" interview)
I wrote some SONY PlayStation developer tools => leads to getting a job at a game development company creating a PSX game (no interview)
Create some tools to theme websites and pull data from a database => accidentally create an adult entertainment empire (no interview)
Document how the Gameboy works, write some developer tools, maintain some developer tools => multiple jobs developing Gameboy games (no interview)
Port MAME to a bunch of consoles, write emulators as side-projects for other consoles => hired to write emulator of their classic consoles for "big console development company" (no interview)
Latest: Posted on HN's "who wants to be hired", initially blew the guy off because it didn't sound interesting, talked to him and found out his company is solving a really difficult problem in the healthcare industry that I am really excited to tackle, two hour chat and an offer.
Footnote: I am reading everyone's stories and they are so positive and wholesome and full of energy!
Linkedin primarily
I was an independent consultant for almost twenty years. About 5 years ago, I started a contract through a friend's company, after reconnecting with him on a different contract the previous year (we'd worked together in the late 90s and early 00s).
That contract was pretty much me bum-in-seat for a client. The primary role of my friend and his co were satisfying the procurement chain (government contract, easier to work within an established SO than to go direct). But he'd check in and we'd chat about how things were.
About two years in, he asked if I had cycles to help on a different contract, so I started some part-time coding and customer engagement management. This went so well that we started talking about changing the nature of our relationship.
Long story short, in mid-2020, I retired my shingle and went to work for his co full time. My title is Director, BD, but given where we are right now, with a hardware network security product and a software integrated risk and compliance product, the former released and generally available, the latter in private beta until September, my actual work varies.
Anyone who has done early stage startup work knows the all hands on deck, whoever has the best skills, approach. Not sustainable long-term, but sometimes the only way to work early on, especially when funding is a mix of his savings and organic revenue.
Today's a great example. First couple of hours were following up on yesterday's customer scrum (how did it go, what comes next, etc.), all internal communications, just enough words, somewhat informal. Next half a day was more formal customer engagement management with another customer, more formal writing, with more care to what was said and unsaid, and to expectations management.
Now I'm in the middle of a brain break before switching gears to coding some performance improvements in the hardware product.
The context switches are the toughest part.