
Ask HN: What do you care about the most in a tech job post? - mrburton
When I look at job posts, I really care about what technology is being used, what would my role be on the team and project, and more.<p>What things do you look for in a technical job post?
======
ljoshua
At the risk of sounding shallow, the salary (and NOT "competitive rates" or
"DOE"). I don't want to waste my time or a potential employer's if
expectations won't line up.

It's not, of course, the only thing I care about, but far too few postings
offer this level of transparency. Love the other ideas of work week length and
problem to be solved as well.

~~~
dotdi
I have recently spent a long time (i.e. months) and an unholy amount of energy
in an interview process that ended up offering a firm number (because of a
ladder similar to the one at Google) that was significantly lower than what I
was making at that time.

In the same time I talked to that company, I had had enough time to talk to 5
others and get 5 more offers that were all offering at least as much as I was
making or significantly more.

Since I was really interested in company #1, I declined really good offers
along the way, hoping I'd get an offer from that company.

You can imagine my elation and subsequent horrors when they told me that they
had picked me for the job and showed me their salary ranges. I would never
ever in my life want to go through such an experience again and I actively
avoid companies that are hiding or avoiding that topic somewhat early in the
process.

~~~
muzani
It's often a negotiation tactic. They force you to invest time into it, so
that you wouldn't want to let go of the investment.

I usually walk away from anyone not announcing salary ranges, because they're
also the most likely to negotiate hard.

~~~
pdimitar
Seconding your point. And I have the anecdotal evidence to prove it -- many
former colleagues (20+) called me months or years later and told me "you were
right to walk away from those guys early".

It's a solid and necessary skill to be able to negotiate hard. But when taken
to such extremes as to keep people oblivious about their salary until the end,
it's a red flag from the get go.

------
jMyles
There's one filter that every single human has: ethics.

Not everyone's philosophy is the same; there are missions that I might find
detestable and you might not.

But for goodness sake, please don't make me go through the process of filling
out a long form, writing a cover-letter, and jumping on a 60 minute phone call
before you tell me that you're building something to help the government kill
people. Like, seriously, put that right at the top and save everybody's time.

~~~
taway_1212
Bakers make bread. Soldiers eat bread to have energy to kill people. Do bakers
help government kill people?

~~~
jMyles
Some people refuse to participate in _any_ meaningful way to the current
economic human web. It seems that this generally drives these people to live a
life of isolation (usually in the forests of the PNW or SE). I know a few such
people, but I'm not convinced that their critique is working out the way they
expected.

So your point is sound: it's up to each of us to decide how to participate and
where to draw various lines.

------
itamarst
Beyond the usual things, that you and others mention, like technical interest
and what the company's goal is and so on: does the company provide a sane
workweek?

Sometimes they very clearly don't ("70-hour weeks" in particularly awful
case).

Other times they definitely do.

Most of the time it's very hard to tell, though, which is a shame. There are
lots of other programmers who care about this besides me (my rant about
70-hour workweek got 120,000 page views -
[https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/09/18/when-startups-pay-
le...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/09/18/when-startups-pay-less/)).

If your company is hiring, provides a sane workweek, and you'd like some ideas
on how to promote your hiring effots - ping me: itamar@codewithoutrules.com.

~~~
mrburton
I came across this post on flipbook the other day :)

------
cgb223
Having just been through the job hunting process, it’s gotta be the speed at
which I can apply.

If it takes me more than 2 minutes to apply for your position, I’m going to
skip the whole thing

If you make me retype everything that’s on my resume, I’m going to pass

My ideal application is attach resume, put basic info like Email and name if
not automatically scraped and submit

~~~
dougmccune
Just to weigh in on the flip side of this from a hiring perspective, if it's
clear to me that someone has done zero research on my particular company, has
no knowledge about what it is we do, and has no articulate explanation of why
this particular job is a good fit for them, then I pass on the candidate
instantly. I don't know if the shotgun a resume with a cut-and-paste cover
letter approach works to some degree, but it at least doesn't work for me.

I know that applying to jobs is a pain in the ass, and that there are far too
many bad actors on the hiring side (ie not giving a clear no and just ghosting
applicants). But if you enter the application process making it clear you have
done your research, you know what the company does, what the specific role is,
and even better if you know something about the people on my side, who you
want to work with and why, etc. then you are guaranteed an interview and
you're starting a mile ahead of anyone just shotgunning in a resume. Yes, that
takes a LOT longer than 2 minutes. But with that approach maybe you won't need
to send in hundreds of applications.

~~~
polote
Why would you only consider only applicants who made research about your
company before ? What kind of skill this task is proving you ?

If I'm right, you are trying to find people who have the rights skills and the
ones who match the culture of the company, right ? Then not doing any research
doesn't mean anything

I do the same, if the application process is longer than 2 minutes, I skip, if
the cover letter is mandatory, I skip. But when I get an interview I prepare a
lot.

~~~
dougmccune
Part of it is showing that you know how to be effective, in this case how to
effectively get yourself hired. A huge part of any tech job is about how you
approach problems, creative thinking, and figuring out the best way to make an
impact -- much of which is not about actually writing code.

So it's about showing that you can take the viewpoint of someone other than
yourself (in this case the person doing the hiring) and figure out how to be
effective. Refusing to even write a paragraph explaining why you're the right
person for a particular job is simply not an effective way to try to get a
job. It shows naivete and a lack of understanding of the system involved,
which makes me assume that you'll approach similar non-technical roadblocks,
of which there will be millions, in the same ineffective way.

~~~
polote
Well I was expecting this answer, so basically you only search for people who
don't apply for a lot of positions and take a lot of time for each of them
before applying.

Don't be surprised if the people you recruit lack the real skills needed by
your company

------
Winterflow3r
1\. What problem is the company/team trying to solve? 2\. What are the special
challenges? For example, ultra low latency or scalability or porting a
monolith to microservices 3\. Technology stack (does it match with my
experience? what can I learn? hotter and newer not always better imho) 4\. The
language used in the post

After this, I usually try to find out as much as I can about the company. It
helps a lot if the company has an engineering/team blog.

------
lucb1e
In the job post, I want to know what is expected of _me_. What am I going to
be doing? What languages/technologies am I supposed to know?

When I'm interested in a post, I'll look at the company website to get a feel
for it. In the job posting they always describe how open and informal the
culture is, how great the atmosphere is, etc. etc. The website often tells me
what kind of company it really is. If that's alright I'll apply and expect
further explanation about both the company and my position in interviews
(since interviews are two-way), while I also fill them in on my
qualifications.

------
apexkid
When i am spending 8 - 10 hours of time everyday at one place, the most i care
is that the organization/team builds an environment that feels comfortable. A
place where everyone cares genuinely about each other and is ready to help. I
maybe crazy, but something i look for in a job role is trust within the team.

------
danharaj
I'm chronically ill so I value most of all flexible work hours and an
understanding that there will be periods of time ranging from days to weeks to
months where I'm derelict as an engineer.

~~~
sjroot
> days to weeks to months where I’m derelict as a software engineer.

 _Months_? I don’t know anything about your situation, but how could you
expect an employer to think that this is worth their resources?

~~~
Mz
Probably a poor framing. Maybe think of it as "No, I will not be working
overtime on a regular basis and running flat out all the time. I may be able
to do stuff like that occasionally, but I just can't sustain it for long
periods."

I am also chronically ill. I had a job at a Fortune 500 company at one time.
People there were aware I was desperately poor because I was walking to work
and everyone was giving me rides. Some folks knew this was because of my
medical condition. The company didn't do shit all for me (other than all the
offers of rides).

Meanwhile, someone who made a lot more money than me had a death in the family
and they did fundraisers so she could attend both the memorial service in one
state and the actual funeral in another. They also routinely did fund raisers
for people with a health crisis or a family member with a health crisis. I was
there over five years. Nothing like that was ever done for me. It is part of
why I left. ("Fuck you, too.")

Yes, I have special needs. No, my special needs are not greater than that of
other employees who were getting the support I lacked.

I now do freelance work so I can work at my own pace. I have carefully
arranged my life in that regard. But, really, I don't think I am more of a
special snowflake than other people with jobs. But, for whatever reason,
people think my needs are unreasonable, while they bend over backwards to take
care of other people who, in some cases, have far less serious problems.

I get that a lot, in all kinds of ways. I don't really understand why. It is
possible that prejudice is an element.

Flexible work and remote work is a potential boon for people with chronic
health issues. There are a lot of people with such issues. As life expectancy
increases and more people survive cancer, etc, we are going to see more people
who can work, need to work and want to work, but they need to do it part time,
flexibly and/or remotely.

~~~
danharaj
I dislike that your post had been downvoted when I wrote this comment. When I
consider all of the possibilities in my life, I can very easily enumerate all
the things that prevented me from getting institutionalized or ending up on
the streets. People who don't want to take that inventory behave strangely
towards those that must.

Long story short, I'm an anarchocommunist for a reason. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

------
pasbesoin
Maybe not "most", but very important (and seldom described): Environment.

Done wasting my time on noise and distraction. "Interaction" is just fine with
me, and I can even context-switch pretty rapidly. Unholy levels of stress and
requirements to "tune out" a bunch of irrelevant and noisy stuff going on
around me? Forgetaboutit.

I'm happier shuffling papers in a quiet, peaceful environment, than coding
"the solution to the universe" in open space with "George who shouts
everything across the aisles" and the very nice Melissa who nonetheless has
multiple cube (really, "cubette") meetings everyday while Tayna pounds her
(shared) desk constantly in emphasis while on sometimes hours long phone
calls.

I think a lot of people can be happy doing more and a far wider range of
things than they imagine, if the environment is simply right.

P.S. Which is by way of saying to employers, if you really want to hire that
10x/rockstar/gets-stuff-done/innovates person, hook them with an assurance
they'll have an optimal working environment. And for many, that means a quiet
physical environment. And if you're endlessly questioning just where the line
is, and how little accommodation you can get away with? You've already lost
that person -- sooner, even if they initially take the position.

------
35bge57dtjku
How many 10x ego people work there, how blame-oriented the company and the
team I'd be working on is, how much pressure there is to always go faster and
how much time is spent prototyping and researching things, will my manager
actually manage as necessary, is there a lot of clearly defined work to be
done and/or a clear mission or are they pivoting constantly, is
compensation/benefits reasonable and standard, etc.

------
Xeoncross
\- Pay

\- Remote / Location

\- Flexible hours?

\- Technology _I will be using_

\- Ethics concerns? (Weapons, Spam, Porn, etc..)

\- Team or solo (if team, can I meet them?)

\- Architecture vs Coding (Do I have any say in projects?)

\----

I am willing to negotiate tens of thousands of dollars for flexible hours and
remote. Commute time and costs add up.

~~~
lynnetye
I'm not sure where you are based, but there are some remote-friendly and all-
remote teams listed on Key Values (keyvalues.io).

Many people define work/life balance as a 40-hour work work, but I would be
willing to negotiate tens of thousands of dollars _and_ more hours/week if I
had the flexibility to work when and where I wanted to.

------
lynnetye
I wish job descriptions said more about the team, culture, and engineering
values. Sure, salary is important too, but there's a wide range I'd be open to
if everything else was aligned.

If you look at [https://www.keyvalues.io](https://www.keyvalues.io), you'll
see what dozens of engineers said they cared about most when evaluating a new
job. I used their responses to create engineering team profiles that would
directly address these things.

Not surprisingly, I see many of the same values described in the comments in
this post: "Work/Life Balance," "High Quality Code Base," "Flexible Work
Arrangements," "Safe Environment to Fail," "Committed to Personal Growth,"
"Team is Diverse," "Remote-OK," "Thoughtful Office Layout," and questions
around how "Product-Driven" the team is.

------
GoToRO
Location: where is the office exactly.

Picture with my desk, chair and station.

Salary range.

All the rest.

~~~
ken
> Picture with my desk, chair and station.

This would save me _so_ much time. I can't count the number of postings I've
seen on "StackOverflow Careers" that brag about their Joel Test score (quiet
working conditions, check!), but when I dig deeper I find a photo of a giant
open floor plan.

I've even seen hiring videos where someone bragged about what a great place it
was to get work done, and right behind the interviewee is a foosball/ping-pong
table, and just on the other side you can see some poor programmer with
headphones trying to block it all out.

The words "quiet working conditions" must mean something else to hiring teams
these days, but no matter. Show a picture of my desk, and there's no
ambiguity.

------
mbrock
I look for 100% remote positions, with no daily meetings and no culture of
video conferencing, and where I can work on free software to benefit the
public good!

~~~
lynnetye
How about Blockstack
([https://www.keyvalues.io/blockstack](https://www.keyvalues.io/blockstack))
or Signal
([https://www.keyvalues.io/signal](https://www.keyvalues.io/signal))?

------
probinso
When possible, I prefer to apply by email or a simple form; but recognize this
is ever less realistic. Do not make me setup an account unless it is
government work like the National Labs.

I spent a lot of time curating my resume, this includes formatting. Let me
submit a pdf.

I would like to know the positions funding model upfront.

Its nice to know what tech is used, and weather the software stack is
monolithic or diverse across the organization.

PTO is important, and should be clearly stated.

If the team has presented at a technology conference recently this is a huge
plus.

salary range is helpful (no need to be super narrow).

What do i need to know? What am I expected to learn? What are nice things to
know?

I would love for postings to include the company's expected response time!
Also satisfactory "We may not respond if you aren't what we're looking for at
this time."

Treat your audience like adults.

Don't use 'ninja' or 'rockstar' as a positive descriptor.

Don't use statements like "We at FreshSqeezed.io provide a service like
Twitter but for Farmer's Markets!".

------
mcv
I'm freelancer and not really looking for a steady job. What I look for in
projects is a mix:

* Location; I love to cycle to work

* Pay rate; if it's too low, they're probably not looking for me, and if it's too high, same. Though I'm willing to take a pay cut when other aspects are good

* Technology; stuff that I know of course, but even more stuff that I want to learn

* Interesting problem space; will I just be moving data between DB and browser, or is there something more interesting about it?

I couldn't say which of these is more important; they all count. Money is nice
of course, but I'm willing to work for a lower rate if it's close to home and
I get to learn something I want to learn but don't know very well yet. The
experience is valuable to me, and my lack of experience makes me less valuable
to the client, so it makes sense for everybody. And no amount of money is
going to make me stick with a job I absolutely hate. Well, maybe some amount
of money, but few would pay that much.

------
alex_duf
\- work / life balance

\- technology used

\- ethics of the company (not making weapons, not spying etc.)

------
dasmoth
Mission and working environment have already been mentioned plenty of times,
and are certainly important.

One that doesn't show up a huge amount at the moment, but which holds huge
weight for me (potentially trumping salary) is autonomy: to what extent am I
going to have leverage to build useful things as an _individual_ rather than a
mostly-fungible "team member".

I'm wondering whether some people have actually been a little scared off from
advertising this because of the risk of being dinged for {bad,lack of}
process.

------
HD134606c
Don't say "fast paced". I take this as an indication that the work will be a
"move fast and break things" type of culture. Many engineers want to build
solid infrastructure and/or cutting edge tech which takes time and thought to
develop. Many engineers do want a challenge - we can tell if it's a
challenging job post from the rest of the ad.

Take this with a grain of salt, some people do actually like "fast paced" of
course.

------
mtrimpe
Just tell me what you want... which is usually what you want to achieve by
hiring me.

What are the key differentiators you’re looking for? If you had to explain
your search to a recruiter... what would your elevator pitch version be? Just
tell me that.

For one of my last jobs it would’ve been this for example:

“You need to be able to explain/guide our customers on how to build internet
banking sites using our product and keep them happy in the process. Lots of
traveling involved.”

------
afarrell
1) Location. Very little would change my mind from desired location.

2) Indications of thoughtfulness and solid engineering practices.

Positives: "testing" "mentorship" "Craftsmanship" "clear communication" "clear
scoping" and indications thereof. Also, 'boringness' of mission--I want to
work on plumbing.

Negatives: "rockstar" "hot".

3) Salary

4) Tech stack

5) Not having candy in easy reach

~~~
lynnetye
2\. Almost all JDs lack information on this front. Knowing how decisions are
made, how engineering-driven the company is, and how decisions are made are
things we don't find out until a few weeks after we've joined.

5\. Support for physical wellness (whether in food or exercise) is also
incredibly important to me.

------
skookum
What I care about most in a tech job post is not having to see it in the first
place. I haven't looked at a job posting since my internships in college and I
sincerely hope to never look at one again. I learn far more about a potential
next gig by talking to ex-coworkers and acquaintances who are already there
than I ever could from looking at a posting.

------
steev
1\. Type of problems I'd be working on 2\. Whether or not the company allows
remote workers 3\. Salary range

------
alkonaut
Apart from stuff you can't ignore (is it the right city etc).

I start by ignoring the first 50% of posts because they are contracting
positions.

Then I look for the tech stack and product built, Since that filters 99% of
the remaining ads (I don't like web tech for example) I rarely need to filter
on more things.

------
lj3
> What things do you look for in a technical job post?

Location and general technology field (frontend or full stack web tech, in my
case). That's it. I don't consider anything else in a job post to be reliable.

------
george_m6002
absence of postmodernist/cultural marxism/lgbt ideology keywords, among which:
gender (there's no gender, there are 2 (two) _sexes_ ), diversity (if the best
candidates happen to be " _white cis male_ ", sorry, I think we can easily do
the work without your "diversity"), safe space (if there will be a male
colleague which because of a weird mental disorder thinks he's a woman, I want
to have the right to call him a man, I don't want to be in the business of
babysitting snowflakes)

~~~
greglindahl
Good that you're self-selecting for these issues!

------
henrik_w
For me, it's working with really good colleagues. Quite hard to find out
before starting if they are, but if they are already there, the company is
likely good, and I will probably learn a lot.

------
fluxsauce
Is this a team that I want to spend more awake time with than my family?

Do I have any moral objections to the way they conduct business?

Will I be doing something that's interesting?

Would I want to tell others about what I do?

------
amriksohata
Technology, salary, business type (ethical), expected work hours and style of
development methodologies. All that is important but also people with people
skills

------
superasn
Visa sponsorship (though I've never had to get a job in my life but afaik this
and paid relocation matters a lot to all my friends)

------
pcglue
Does it mention agile or scrum? If so, pass.

------
Fire-Dragon-DoL
Ethics, remote, salary range. In that sequence

------
quadcore
Does company size matters to you guys?

------
MechEStudent
I look at the Joel score. It is simple, and tells me if they are built around
making good software or bureaucracy. It they can't make a decent Joel score,
or justify why they don't have it, then you are going to spend more of your
time attending mandatory meetings than actually writing code.

I have come to believe that, in poor quality companies, HR is peopled by
gremlins. If the person writing the post gets something really technically
bad, and doesn't know it, then I don't want to work there. It means that I am
going to be interviewed (and selected) by trolls, instead of technical folks.
It means that if I can tell a funny joke, or look cute, then that is going to
overwhelm the weight of any technical ability they can discern. It means that
half my coworkers are idiots, so when they figure out I can do what they talk
about, I'm going to be gamed, pressured, blackmailed, and pushed to do half of
everybody's work. If I wanted to do it ALL myself, and get none of the credit,
rewards, remuneration, advancement, or job security, then I would start my own
company.

I look for pointy-haired-boss jargon (think Dilbert). I hate those folks. They
usually don't know anything but how to exploit others for their own
professional gain.

It doesn't take much looking around to see how the company is doing. They like
to hire newbies right before a layoff. I look at company performance, and if
it looks like they are about to lay a ton of folks off, I don't want to play
there. They are laying people off because of previous failures to hire the
right people. If the folks getting the axe aren't including the upper levels
of HR, then the source of failures to hire, manage, retain, and grow the right
people hasn't been resolved.

It doesn't take much looking to see if they have spammed job boards. If there
are going to be 100, or 1000 folks applying for the position, I don't want to
deal with the crap. They don't know actual quality, so they more aggressively
filter on keywords. If I don't have the right keyword I'm not on the menu? I
don't need to work there. They like to pat their back, find someone decent who
they can exploit by paying 1/3 of market rate. That game is built to take away
my livelihood. I'd rather just work and do truly amazing things for their
competitors, and let economics 101 and the market wash the dross from the
market.

I look for folks who participated in the
Techtopus([https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-
valle...](https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-
celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/))
(massive screw over engineers company collusion) and if the company was on the
list I boycott them. If they are going to try to suppress wages in the field
for decades, I can suppress their revenue.

I look at company pictures, and pictures of employees on LinkedIN. If they
don't have at least one person who is mostly like me, then statistically I
can't succeed there. I go elsewhere.

I review glassdoor. If they have a track-record of treating folks badly,
especially folks who have had my position, I go elsewhere.

