I have about 6 years of experience. I'm a senior team lead at a bay area startup.
I'm really looking for what areas to 'focus' on.
1. I don't think SO career profile is worth maintaining. You're right, the job selection/application process is nice and simple. 2. Resume/cover letters are still very important and need to be maintained/tailored to each job. 3. LinkedIn seems like a good networking/reference tool so should probably be maintained. 4. Dice.com? Doesn't seem worth maintaining to me.
It seems to me directly applying for positions with a nice resume/cover letter are still #1. A decent LinkedIn seems to help showcase recommendations/network, but isn't super important.
As for tech, I feel I am comfortable with anything from C/C++ to Ruby/Python/Go to JavaScript. I have experience on mobile, desktop and web development. I'm open to all opportunities but hoping for mobile/desktop or backend work.
I only have 6-ish years of professional experience but I've written code from a young age and have a number of open source projects as well as contributions to major projects like Vim, Homebrew, etc.
For passive (just being out there), SO inbound is way higher quality than LinkedIn. LI is spammy for me.
The last time I did a massive search (2006), I really liked indeed.com for aggregating. I made an RSS to a very specific search term. It took months to even get one hit, but I worked there for 7 years.
Generically, I like SO careers -- you don't need rep on it to apply to jobs.
The most effective application advice I could give is to make your resume and cover letter specific to the job you are applying for. Your cover letter should be treated as a writing sample that is an argument for why you should be hired for the specific job being offered.