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?
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
You can perhaps bootstrap your site with experienced developers from Who is Hiring monthly posts.
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.
How would you prove to companies that your venting system is valid?
How is this different from LinkedIn?
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.
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.
meaning you think a new platform will have a hard time finding traction right now because there's an oversuppply of devs?
Not sure I understood this. Meaning someone who can find contract work for you? Or find you a dev?
I use my free time for music and family (not in that order)
This would definitely be useful for existing freelancers though.
1. anon by default 2. double opt in. Your details won't be available to anyone that you haven't given access to.
