Ask HN: A manager to get me interviews?

3 points by pilotdeveloper 2 years ago | 1 comment

I'm a software developer with +13 years of experience, worked as a Principal-Staff Engineer/Tech Lead/etc. Lately I've been working as a contractor for the US but my contract ends soon.

I never looked for a job in my life, offers always arrived (mostly via Linkedin) but the situation looks different now, and I don't want to go blindly applying and filling forms that people don't even read (I've been at the other side of the table too).

I'm looking for a US company working with Rails/Postgresql/maybe Elixir. Looking for >150K/yr and working remotely from outside the US (be it South America or Europe).

Do any of you have a good contact that can act as a "manager" and get me offers? Or any other ideas to get me on the spotlight without going after a rabbit hole of filling up forms?

gigatexal 2 years ago |

I think what you're looking for is a recruiter. If you post on LinkedIn about such and hashtag #recruiter and then change your status to Open To Work you'll get flooded with offers.

The problem then will be how to filter the offers. Questions I like to ask is:

Startups: - Is X profitable? Is that after taxes/payroll, etc? -- What is the burn rate? How long could X survive before needing to get another round of funding? - What is the compensation range? Bonuses? Stock? How much? - What's the churn rate? Has the company pivoted recently? (I had joined a company a while back that fired the majority of its Java devs such that all the remaining devs had max 1-year of experience at the company, long story short: the company was terribly run and nothing worked) - What's the tech stack? - Remote friendly?

You could also check weworkremotely.com

Anyways, put everything you want in your post and then spend the time fielding offers and you'll find something really good.

I'm involved in the hiring of the company I work for (only tangentially but still) and it seems, at least in Berlin, that seniors and above engineers are in huge demand because they can be immediately productive.

Elixir and Rails also have large communities and joining them either on Reddit or in Discord or Slack there might be channels/subreddits that have job boards.

Lastly, the Who's Hiring In June here on HN and then grepping for Elixir or Rails and remote stuff could be beneficial.

GOOD LUCK!