Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (May 2026)

Hacker News Discussion ↗

Engineers, designers, data scientists, and product leaders around the world are using this monthly Hacker News hiring thread to advertise their availability for new roles. The posts skew senior and remote-first, with many candidates emphasizing experience in AI/LLMs, infrastructure and DevOps, mobile, full‑stack web, and early‑stage startups, often seeking high‑ownership positions, fractional or contract work, and missions with clear real‑world impact.

Scope of roles and experience

  • Thread is a long directory of people seeking work across the stack: backend, frontend, full‑stack, mobile, ML/AI, DevOps/SRE, infrastructure, data, security, game dev, embedded, optimization, and design (UI/UX, product, brand).
  • Many have 10–20+ years’ experience, including ex‑Big Tech, ex‑YC, founders, staff/principal engineers, and engineering managers.
  • There are also juniors and students (CS undergrads, recent grads, early‑career full‑stack and data engineers) looking for first or next roles.

Remote work, location, and relocation

  • Strong bias toward remote‑first work, often with explicit time‑zone constraints (EU hours, US Eastern overlap, etc.).
  • Geographic spread is global: North and South America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Asia.
  • Relocation preferences vary: some strictly remote‑only, some open within country/region, a minority willing to move globally if sponsored or for an exceptional opportunity.

AI/LLM and modern tooling

  • AI/LLM experience is pervasive: many mention LLM apps, RAG pipelines, LangChain/LangGraph, agentic workflows, MCP servers, local inference, and model training.
  • Numerous people emphasize using coding copilots and tools (Claude Code, Copilot, Cursor, etc.) as part of daily work.
  • A few explicitly prefer non‑AI work or say they don’t want to “chase the fad,” highlighting a small countercurrent.

Engagement types and preferences

  • Many are open to both full‑time and contract; a large subset specifically seeks freelance, fractional CTO/VP Eng, consulting, or short high‑leverage projects.
  • Several want early‑stage or founding‑engineer roles with high ownership; others prefer stability at established companies.
  • Some explicitly object to long interview pipelines, unpaid multi‑hour take‑home tests, and “calculator apps on Kubernetes.”
  • A few posts are meta: brief questions or comments on links, sponsorship, and sales, plus one consulting group advertising for senior part‑time engineers.

Values and domains

  • Recurring interest in meaningful or socially positive work: climate, healthcare, education, open source, civic/regulatory data, and non‑exploitative finance.
  • Several explicitly avoid gambling, ads/surveillance, defense, or certain crypto niches.
  • Many highlight strengths in ownership, mentoring, cross‑functional collaboration, and shipping real production systems end‑to‑end.