Ask HN: What do developers look for in a job listing?

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]).

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

salary

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.

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.

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.

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.

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"

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)

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.