Ask HN: Experienced devs, do you wish for work to find you?

[v1l]

I'm contemplating building a directory where *experienced* (this is key) devs and leads can list themselves so opportunities can find them.

What opportunities? Freelance/consulting work and full time roles of interest.

Why? Companies are always looking for devs and leads with strong experience. Now more than ever, they're also open to "interesting" arrangements (fractional, consulting, project specific etc).

But I wonder, is this something you even wish for? For opportunities to find you? Or are you pretty happy with the status quo?

[gregjor]

You, or someone, would have to vet developers to get into the directory.

I think employers will find recruiters and agencies more useful than yet another online directory, because someone else does the work of finding and vetting candidates. The low bar to entry (just like software development) lets unqualified people get into recruiting/placement. Finding a good recruiter is like finding a good software developer.

The 10X Management agency has a model that attempts to address the difficulty businesses face finding qualified and experienced developers. You can find other agencies and recruiters who know what they're doing.

Developers with good reputations and networks of contacts will have work find them. The more experienced developers I know, and I include myself, do not have to fill out applications or look for work, it comes to them.

Disclaimer: 10X Management represents me. I do not speak for them -- my opinions, not theirs.

[v1l]

Your feedback is valid but looking at your bio, it's specific to your context.

I think you're way overqualified for most platforms/directories. It makes sense that you're represented by 10x. But between where you are and the early career dev, there are tens of thousands of devs who have good bit of experience and places they've worked at and yet have a hard time finding good work and relevant roles.

It's a myth that every experienced person has a strong network and lands their next gig/job through it. I'd say that only applies to 20% of devs. Most are still found by recruiters or apply cold.

I talked about the vetting part here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38997274

[gregjor]

You probably should have defined what you meant by strong experience. A directory of experienced developers implies some kind of selection and vetting process. Your vetting idea seems to come down to looking at LinkedIn. Don't you suppose that's what every recruiter already does?

I doubt you'll find many employers who think LinkedIn gives sufficient filters. Your whole directory idea assumes that LinkedIn doesn't have enough filtering or vetting, thus the need for a more selective directory.

I didn't write that "every experienced person has a strong network" or lands all of their jobs that way. I don't know how that breaks out percentage-wise and I hesitate to guess, but I'm not proposing yet another job or developer directory.

Good luck entering what seems a crowded field.

[v1l]

Fair criticism.

But the part I'm not understanding is that you seem imply that recruiters are better at selection/vetting than a directory or platform that's run by experienced engineers who are selecting other experienced engineers.

I also don't think this is an either/or. Most managers only care about quality candidates coming through the door. So there can be multiple solutions. This isn't a winner take all market by any means.

It's a crowded field so getting noticed will be a challenge.

[gregjor]

Good recruiters vet people, and jobs, and match them up. And good recruiters have relationships and inside tracks with employers. Not all recruiters, of course. Experienced developers, on the other hand, have little incentive to vet their peers, and may do a worse job than a good recruiter because they will focus on different things. Developers and employers have different definitions of quality, in other words.

Of course "managers only care about quality candidates coming through the door," or at least they care a lot about that. But you have to define what you mean by "quality candidates" and how you have an efficient way to identify those candidates and put them in front of potential employers. You can just say that people in your directory have experience and got vetted somehow, but I think you will have to do more than that to stand out and get credibility.

Many people have attacked this problem, including recruiters and agencies, and all kinds of job boards and lists of professionals seeking employment, from LinkedIn to more specialized or elite lists. If you have some new ideas, great.

You started this thread with a proposed directory for developers that would let the "opportunities can find them." Who pays in that model? How does an employer trust the directory? How is the directory maintained and vetted? How is it not LinkedIn, in other words?

[capr]

I've never met a good recruiter. The best ones hire experienced developers to talk to me.

[vunderba]

Here are the main issues I see with something like this:

1. As with any social network system, the most difficult part is that you need a critical mass of users before the system becomes worthwhile, but to be able to get users, you already have to have traction in the first place, so it's a bit of a chicken/egg issue.

2. You say you're building a directory that features experienced devs. The next question is naturally - how are you going to verify these devs? Everyone is going to have their own definition of what it means to be an "experienced dev".

The fact that everyone just "lists themselves" means that by definition there's really no trust or verification in the process itself from a potential employer perspective.

3. It sounds like your goal is to basically be the white pages of experienced devs which is laudable enough, however, I'm still not sure I understand the buy value from an employer perspective. Why would they take the time to visit this random website as opposed to just running searches on people's LinkedIn resumes filtered by years of experience?

[v1l]

Thanks for your thoughtful feedback.

The chicken and egg is real. My plan to counter that is to only focus on the dev side first and find leads for them by brute force, i.e., initially I don't expect any employers to go to the platform.

I want to keep the verification light by design. Most employers aren't going to trust a platform's verification anyways. All these guarantees of top 2% devs are bullshit. I believe that basic resume review and occasionally asking an extra question or two takes care of the 80%. I think that's not a bad place to be since no platform is going to be perfect. My goal with verification is to make sure the platform isn't infiltrated by early career or devs who wouldn't pass the muster of most recruiter resume reviews.

You're exactly right. I want to build the whitepages of experienced devs. I'm not under any delusion that employers will just flock to this. I think if it at all works, much of the finding will have to be done on behalf of the employer, i.e., they tell what they want and we go scour the directory and send them leads.

I'd love to get your thoughts on the above.

[nextos]

> The chicken and egg is real

You can perhaps bootstrap your site with experienced developers from Who is Hiring monthly posts.

[b20000]

companies demand leetcode style interviews and i refuse to do them. this will be a challenge.

why? typically those who interview have a favourite trick question which is unrepresentative of actual relevant skill on the job. their goal is to prove superior intellect as they are insecure and want to keep their job. they get intimidated if they interview ex founders especially, who are generalists.

[dudul]

How would you make sure only experienced devs sign up?

How would you prove to companies that your venting system is valid?

How is this different from LinkedIn?

[v1l]

Experience can be assessed by asking for LinkedIn/website/resume and checking that. This will probably suffice for the 90%.

It's not going to be foolproof. Just because someone has good experience in their background doesn't mean they're good. But neither are interviews foolproof. They can be gamed.

I wouldn't need to prove to companies that the vetting is valid. They can see the results themselves. The platform would die if the bar isn't maintained.

LinkedIn _is_ a free for all. This would also be anon by default and double opt-in for devs.

[dudul]

Sorry but this makes no sense to me.

Anyone can put whatever on a resume. I can pay some guy in a 3rd world country to build me a nice looking website. You would be doing even less than a recruiter to vet my experience.

You would absolutely need to prove to companies - your customers - that your vetting process - your product - is valid. How are you going to get it going if your only argument is "look, it's been 3 days and I'm still in business ".

As a hiring manager,you would literally be taking value away from me since I would be reaching a smaller pool of candidates and still need to interview them.

[v1l]

Have you ever not interviewed a candidate presented by a recruiter?

Has a candidate presented by a recruiter never been a dud? Most recruiters I have worked with aren't able to assess my experience anyways.

It is absolutely possible that this can be gamed but the game won't last long. And it's possible that some level of vetting will need to be built anyway. We'll see.

> As a hiring manager,you would literally be taking value away from me since I would be reaching a smaller pool of candidates

No one is saying you're forced to use this as your only solution. Obviously you won't.

[dudul]

Then maybe I missed the point of your thing. What's the value you're providing exactly if I still need to run my interviews? This would not be saving me any time or money.

[fruktmix]

I had a similar idea. I think it's very annoying to have to decrypt incoming linkedin messages to tell if it's interesting or not. However, just browsing, it's clear that the job market for devs is on the down low and I think I will work on my idea later

[v1l]

> job market for devs is on the down low and I think I will work on my idea later

meaning you think a new platform will have a hard time finding traction right now because there's an oversuppply of devs?

[mikodin]

100%, this is exactly what I want. Provided that the opportunities are legit and aren't spam and that they pay actually competitive and it's not a race to the bottom like upwork or something

[throwaway097992]

I am willing to pay $10K-20K in cash to anyone who can find a contractor work for me. I want to use a service like Deel.com to receive payments.

[v1l]

> who can find a contractor work for me

Not sure I understood this. Meaning someone who can find contract work for you? Or find you a dev?

[throwaway097992]

I apologize, I am seeking employment or contractor work.

[v1l]

my email is in my bio. Would you mind sending me a quick note?

[v1l]

Could I message you in a few days to run this by you? My email is in my bio.

[schwartzworld]

My concern is can you make it worth my time? Do people hire staff/architect level devs on a freelance basis? I don't want to compete with developers in developing countries.

[v1l]

Do you freelance now? And when you're looking for a job, how do you go about it? (recruiters?)

[schwartzworld]

I don't now but I tried in the past. Working with individual clients is worse than my day job, so I want to make more per hour, not less. I don't think it can be worthwhile, unless I find myself REALLY needing the money (i.e. unexpected debilitating medical bills).

I use my free time for music and family (not in that order)

[v1l]

> Working with individual clients is worse than my day job

I can fully relate to this. For this reason, I generally prefer to work with just one "primary" client at a time.

Doing any moonlighting alongside a job though is playing on hard mode.

With regards to finding a full time job, how do you go about it (when you do)? Just hit up your network?

[schwartzworld]

Network, some go-to websites. It's all looking pretty dry right now.

[aster0id]

Won't HR peruse this directory to see which of their employees are looking elsewhere?

This would definitely be useful for existing freelancers though.

[v1l]

It would likely be anon with a double opt in for intro.

[hargup]

Yes. I'm looking for contracting opportunities now and want companies to find me.

[satvikpendem]

Work already finds me so I'm not sure what you're talking about exactly.

[v1l]

How does it find you? Do you have a large network? Do you keep getting referrals/opportunities from former employers or clients?

[dsattt]

Companies want cheap code monkeys that do leetcode. I don’t see this working.

[v1l]

That sounds like a pretty cynical view. There are thousands of companies (non faang) that don't do leetcode.

Why do you not see it not working?

[dsattt]

Those companies pay below the market.

[solardev]

Isn't this just like getting spammed by recruiters on LinkedIn?

[v1l]

Two ways this can be countered:

1. anon by default 2. double opt in. Your details won't be available to anyone that you haven't given access to.

[nusl]

Yes

[v1l]

can you say more?

what's so hard about your current experience? what will prevent you from listing yourself on a directory like I proposed?

[nusl]

I mean that being offered interviews is often preferable to sending resumes and being ghosted