
Ask HN: What do developers look for in a job listing? - adibchoudhury
What sort of creative or interesting job ads have you come across that have really appealed to you? What specifically appeals to you when looking through job listings? Looking for general ideas and actual examples of listings.
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MalcolmDiggs
I'm most attracted to job listings that emphasize the company's people over
other concerns.

Sure, it's nice to hear about all your great technology, and how many users
you have, and your latest huge funding rounds...but none of that will make me
wanna get up in the morning. After a few months on the job the only thing that
really matters to me is _who_ I'm working with, not necessarily _what_ I'm
building. So, I look for job ads that focus on culture, core values, and team-
member health. I like to see that the company is proud of (and values) their
people as much as their stack. And I like to see team members who are active
in the open source community, who attend meetups and such, and seem to have a
nice work/life balance.

I try to picture myself there, and I figure: "If I take this gig, in a few
months I'll likely be the average of the people who are already there". So if
the existing team members seem happy and healthy, that's a good sign. If they
seem overworked and depressed, I'm going to stay away.

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erroneousfunk
I'll usually look at all of the company's tech (and sometimes other) job
listings, even if I'm not interested in the jobs, just to get a sense of how
the organization works, and what sort of development environment they have. A
few red flags: Don't say you're looking for an "engineer" and then mention
that the job involves implementing someone else's specifications (engineers
specifically design products -- they're not ticket monkeys)

Along the same lines, asking for a JavaScript developer and then tacking on
"must have great UX skills" is a huge red flag. Does the company really not
know enough about UX that they think it's appropriate for the front end
developer to sort of figure out as they're working?

Like others have said, using words like "ninja," "rockstar," "guru" is an
immediate turnoff, although that's becoming less common. Using cutesy trendy
references in an attempt to be cool, or overplaying the "cultural fit" aspect
is also a little worrisome. Like, "okay, I understand that everyone is TOTALLY
AWESOME and loves to drink beer and play foozeball, but what about the 401k
matching?" If you want to hire a bunch of out-of-college brogrammers, that's
fine, but I'm not going to respect the company, or want to work there.

Clear, concise, detailed description of what the job actually is and perhaps
an example of what the day-to-day activities and responsibilities are.

Similarly, be detailed about the benefits -- they tell you a lot about a
company. A job description that mentions family leave and 401k matching makes
it seem like they actually care about employees. "Great benefits!" sounds like
they're hiding something.

Essentially, the job posting should just seem written by someone knowledgeable
about the field (no questionable language, no using trendy but kind of not-
what-you-really-want words like "CSS3" instead of "CSS"), professional,
detailed, and appealing. I mean, what would you want to see on a resume?

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allsystemsgo
If it has anything like "build cool stuff", "rockstar" or anything like that,
I'm not interested.

I'm most interested in a place that gives a shit about their employees. Work
life balance is huge. Pay scale is huge. Rewarding hard working employees is
huge. If the description looks like something that would entice a 22 year old
college grad, I'm probably not interested.

~~~
kat
I strongly agree with the work-life balance. When the add explicitly states
where the office is, the expected the work hours, the number of holiday days,
the career development support, etc I'm much more excited to apply. There is
nothing worse than applying to a job that is going to be a transit commute to
the middle of nowhere. Also when they offer things like relocation support and
visa lawyers, its pretty wonderful.

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pjungwir
1\. Salary!

That's the number one thing I look for, and if it's not there, I move on. If
you want to attract good people, give a salary range. Don't tell me it's
"competitive" (which means it isn't).

2\. Remote

If it's not remote I'm not interested.

3\. Techs

Ideally this should be a very short list. For instance I wrote a job ad a few
years ago and asked for just Rails and jQuery. If you tell me you're looking
for XML, JSON, REST, or APIs I'll know you don't really understand that those
techs are puny compared to ones that require lots of experience.

4\. Professional/Career Development

Are you offering a job or a career? What opportunities for growth do you
offer? Is there a training budget? What about training for non-technical
stuff? Do you send people to conferences? Do you give people time to write and
deliver talks at conferences? Is there a technical track with comparable
compensation to the management track? I know startups don't like to "do HR",
but if you have thought about this you will really stand out.

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deciplex
Professional photographs on your careers webpage of your open-plan office,
perhaps with a ping-pong table or arcade cabinet in the middle of a sea of
whimsically-arranged single-monitor workstations, will count against you. This
is mainly because it will show that you have an open-plan office, and believe
communicating this fact will increase your attractiveness to candidates.

Compensation sends a stronger signal about the quality of your company culture
and the seriousness with which you treat work/life balance, than any words you
can speak or put on paper.

To add to this, a list of a few keywords roughly in descending order of
unattractiveness - for the most part I would pass on any listing that
contained any of these: ninja, rockstar, "work hard, play hard", scrum.

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lhorie
My most memorable interactions with potential employers started with a
handwritten cold email from a tech lead person of the company, mentioning
something about my github profile (which shows they took the two minutes to do
some basic homework on their end).

For closing the deal, however, I look for good pay (e.g. don't offer me equity
in lieu of money, especially when some quick research reveals you're also
receiving candidates from recruiting agencies) and I look for a good fit (e.g.
culture/policy of reasonable work hours, I'm allowed to - and encouraged to -
hold intelligent discussions with the team rather than wasting my time w/ HR
bureaucracy or googleable trivia, etc)

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theaccordance
When it comes to job listings, I'm mostly interested in technology keywords
that match either my whitelist (JavaScript, Node, Angular) or my Blacklist
(Microsoft, Drupal, WordPress). This is the easiest way for me personally to
determine if having an interview with a specific company is worth my time.
Everything else I'll discover through either my pre-interview due diligence
(researching company & leadership background) or conversations held during the
interview process.

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lsiebert
When they are interested in good people who can code, not experience with
their exact stack. That said, if I have experience with their stack,
mentioning it may get me interested. Not requiring a CS degree. Mentioning
being able to contribute back to open source is good.

Having entry level positions is a good thing, as long they don't require 2-3
years of work experience in your stack when you are hiring new grads. That's
basically a red flag saying you want to find somebody who's cheap and not give
them any training. But I definitely like if a company is hiring for a range of
experience levels. If you are only hiring senior people, then where is the
opportunity to grow in a position?

Jobs that want people who can do the job are preferably. If you only want
people who have already done this exact job, you are asking people to move
laterally, not up.

I love a description of common tasks that I would be expected to perform. I
like to know how people communicate (multiple in person meetings everyday are
a red flag though).

Having looked at my github code, or at least at the readme files, is nice.
Don't ask me if I've ever done angular when I have an angular app on my resume
with a working example. btw, I do Angular sure, but I don't respond to
anything that requires photoshop skills.

Jobs that list how their interview process works make me happy.

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rbanffy
Oh... And anything that looks like HR BS like "ninja", "rockstar" and similar.
Those are big red flags.

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mrfusion
Offering a guaranteed response might entice a lot of applicants e.g., "Yes or
No, We promise to get back to you with in one week"

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bowlich
A concrete description of the product being developed. Bonus points if I can
actually get a demo copy of it to play around with before applying. I'm amazed
at the number of job listings filled with a lot of verbose abstract language
that never gets down to the meat of what it is they'll expect you to be
making.

Other than that, any mention of good coding practices (automated testing,
continuous integration) or technologies that show the company is keeping up in
the field and not getting too bogged down in a lot of legacy code.

~~~
adibchoudhury
Thanks for the input! Would you mind sharing how much experience you have? I
think it'll help me tailor the job listing a little better.

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eip
I specifically search for "remote" or "telecommute". Then I look for the
technologies used to see if it's things I like working with or things I want
to learn.

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rbanffy
I look for technologies I like to work with and for technologies I don't like
to work with (for a negative filter). I also look for dead-end stuff and tech
that's not used anywhere else, as those have negative value (time I invest in
mastering them is time taken away from mastering whatever makes me a good fit
for [next cool project]).

~~~
adibchoudhury
Would you mind sharing how much experience you have? I think it'll help me
tailor the job listing a little better

~~~
rbanffy
I work mostly with Python since 2002, more or less, and with web applications
primarily since 1995 (with one embedded C job, for the Brazilian electronic
voting system). I used and would use again Python, Django, Flask, Twisted and
Google App Engine. I like to use TDD and agile. I run from PMI-style projects,
Java for web applications (it's fine on Android), PHP and would not be
exceedingly happy with Node, but I find JS usable.

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Rifu
I agree with most of what the other comments have mentioned, but I'd also add
that one of the most important things I look for when I'm going through job
listings is if the product/project they're working on is something I'm
actually interested in.

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mrfusion
I think seeing an email address to apply to is important. If you dump me into
a form and ask me to retype my resume section by section, I'm not going to do
it.

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bbcbasic
The ones where a former respected colleague emails me are the best.

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claudiug
salary

