
Ask HN: LinkedIn alternatives for engineers - rileyt
Are there any good LinkedIn alternatives? Any specifically targeted at engineers?<p>My major issues with LinkedIn are:<p>1. Data ownership and privacy (essentially selling data to paying customers)<p>2. Inability to easily export data<p>3. Spam from recruiters &#x2F; people I don&#x27;t know<p>4. Awful to use and ugly interface<p>5. Very bad developer relations and closed platform<p>6. Overall spammy and dishonest past<p>7. Out of control email spam (that continues after closing your account)<p>Does anyone else feel this way, or am I on my own here?
======
BjoernKW
To what end? The only audience - other than engineers - such a network would
appeal to is recruiters looking for engineers, which at least in the long-term
would cause pretty much the same problems you described. What's the purpose of
engineers only networking among each other? Engineering is not a bubble that
lives independently of other professions.

Another point is: Would you pay for such a service? The main reason why
LinkedIn is as it is, is that nobody (well, nobody save for recruiters) wants
to pay for their service. Hence, they had to find other avenues of
monetization and started selling their users' profile data. XING - a European
competitor - isn't entirely free but had a fairly successful premium offering
right from the start. From what I'm seeing they don't have a prevalent spam
problem, at least not to the extent LinkedIn has (LinkedIn spam probably isn't
even seen as a problem by the company at all but rather encouraged, they just
don't say so openly).

~~~
rileyt
It doesn't have to be for just engineers. It just seems like most competitors
to large services like linkedin start by targeting a specific group. The
purpose of engineers networking amongst each other would be for referrals,
which are arguably more important than recruiters reaching out to random
people.

I would consider paying for the service, but not much (and im not sure many
other people would). You definitely have a good point here. I'm not sure how
you could make money without having the recruiters as your customers, which
would put you back in the same bad place as linkedin. Maybe something along
the lines of tying it to the refarral bonuses people are getting?

------
tedmiston
JSON Resume ([https://jsonresume.org/](https://jsonresume.org/)) is a project
that attempts to create a JSON standard for resumes. You also get total data
control and ownership.

As far as the shared network aspect, you'd probably have to build the glue
between it and something like AngelList or Stack Overflow Careers.

------
bswuft
I agree with you on most of your points, but don't know an alternative. I
actually accept all requests from recruiters and will hit them up if i ever
need extra work, so the spam I get ends up paying off in the end. I've gotten
a few gigs from recruiters on linkedin.

~~~
rileyt
Do you not find that the recruiter noise gets in the way of keeping in touch
with people you know though?

~~~
analognoise
People actually use LinkedIn to keep in touch? I thought everyone used it as a
static resume holder.

~~~
giaour
I do for some former coworkers. I don't use Facebook and have moved around a
lot, so LinkedIn is actually an easy way to keep up with people I used to work
with.

------
r2dnb
I'd say that the most obvious answer is StackOverflow Career.

