[michaelochurch]

The problem is that it's hard to show your real skill level (especially on back-end work) so getting access to these better jobs is 90% how you market yourself and where you are (New York and Silicon Valley rents are horrid, but worth every penny in comparison to 95% of places) and only 10% based on your skill level (much less unrealized potential).

You don't have to be a celebrity, but you have to be some combination of accessible and validated.

The good news is that marketing yourself is actually a lot easier than programming. You don't need a natural social acumen to do it. I know this because I'm pretty good at it and certainly do not have natural social talents.

If you want to experience "reverse interviews", you have to be in a technology hub.

That said, the dynamic is not as engineer-favorable as people make it out to be. Sure, a good engineer can get 5 in-bound contacts from recruiters per week-- again, that has more to do with self-marketing than skill level-- but most of those don't mean anything. Most often, it's just an invitation to send a resume into the normal process.

[daned]

As a reasonably competent unemployed technologist I would be interested in hearing more about how you go about marketing.

[bennyg]

Here's how I got people contacting me for jobs in the Valley and NYC. And not recruiters either, potential bosses.

1.) have a Github account, and release open-source software that helps coders be better at what they do. Basically release tools of sorts.

2.) Make the documentation for those tools absolutely stellar. Look at the .raw for the readmes of the various Github repositories you like and love. Emulate some of the stylistic choices to improve your documentation.

3.) Make a Show HN. Or, whenever your software can help a situation you notice in the comments here, promote it. Don't be afraid to do this, because this promotion is absolutely necessary.

4.) Post to the subreddit of the language that your software is for, but don't be commercial about it. You have to be honest. So write like you're talking to a friend. This is easier if you're talking out loud as you write.

==============

Doing these things will add eyes to your projects. People can see your nicely documented code, see your screenshots, and can imagine how this will help their coding. This is GOOD. If you can make the front page of HN or the frontpage of the subreddit for your language, you're in business. Basically you want to be trending on Github for the language of your choice (top 5 starred today is what you're aiming for). That is the hardest part, but from that point, it's a piece of cake. If you're trending on Github, there WILL be blog posts written about your repo, there WILL be unsolicited tweets about it, and you WILL get good feedback about your coding. The eyes on your repo have now exponentially gone up - and your coding is in front of a lot of people.

The thing is, technical directors like productive coders. If your repo/tool makes ALL coders more productive, then they will love you. It's as simple as that. You know the whole 10x engineer hoopla that's thrown around on here? You'd be doing that for other people. A multiplier of multipliers. If you do that, people will be in contact with you. Just stick with it.

[daned]

Thanks for the reply!

[clark-kent]

Great tips thanks