Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (May 2025)

Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overview of the Thread

  • The thread is almost entirely individual “seeking work” posts: engineers, data/ML people, designers, product and leadership types advertising availability.
  • Most posts follow a common pattern: location, remote/relocation preferences, tech stack, links to CV/portfolio, and brief career highlights or domain interests.

Roles and Experience Levels

  • Very wide range of seniority:
    • New grads and early‑career engineers (especially in systems, ML, and full‑stack web).
    • Many mid/senior full‑stack and backend engineers.
    • Numerous staff/principal-level ICs and former founders, CTOs, heads of engineering, product leaders, and architects.
  • Roles represented:
    • Web/full‑stack (React/Next, Vue, Svelte, Node, Rails, Django, Laravel).
    • Backend/platform/infra (Go, Rust, Java, .NET, C/C++, Python, Postgres, distributed systems, DevOps/SRE).
    • Data/ML/AI (LLMs, RAG, MLOps, CV, scientific computing, finance/quant).
    • Embedded/robotics/firmware/HPC and hardware interfacing.
    • Mobile (iOS/macOS, Android, React Native, Flutter).
    • Design/product: UX/UI, brand, product design (including “designer‑who‑codes”), and product management.
    • Security, QA/automation, competitive analysis, technical writing, and architecture/strategy consulting.

Technologies and Domains

  • Strong clustering around:
    • TypeScript/JavaScript ecosystems (React/Next, Node, TS-heavy stacks).
    • Python (data, ML, backend) and Go/Rust for systems and infra.
    • Cloud and infra: AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD, observability.
    • AI/LLM work: agents, RAG pipelines, MLOps, privacy‑aware LLMs, applied AI products, and AI‑enhanced dev tools.
  • Domain interests frequently mentioned: fintech/payments, health/biotech, climate/clean tech, sports, robotics, education, and “meaningful”/social‑impact products; some explicitly avoid crypto or adtech, others are crypto/web3‑focused.

Work Setup Preferences

  • Remote‑first is dominant; many have long remote histories and async workflows.
  • Quite a few will not relocate; others are open within specific regions (US, EU, Canada, SE Asia).
  • Engagement types include:
    • Full‑time employment.
    • Contract/freelance/consulting.
    • Fractional CTO/CISO/architect, advisory, and short high‑leverage engagements.

Interpersonal and Etiquette Notes

  • One mini‑debate: a commenter challenged a candidate’s long technology list; others pushed back that grilling candidates in a “who wants to be hired” thread is rude and not in good faith.
  • A couple of recruiters or founders reply directly to promising candidates to invite them to apply or email.
  • Meta‑observations note how much senior talent appears in these threads and implicitly question how that squares with the current job market.