A hacker friend asked me a while ago how to find a job with a startup, and it bothers me that I've never been able to give him a satisfactory answer. I wanted to respond "through friends" but that's not very helpful to someone who isn't as well-connected, which he isn't because he made the mistake of taking a mind-numbing job when he left college and losing touch with his classmates.

Startups don't often hire recruiters, and most of the "startup" job ads on the internet job boards seem to be either a) established companies claiming to be startups in order to sound trendy, or b) Ponzi schemes. So what's left?

Many VCs actually post their portfolio's job openings on their website:

- Sequoia: http://www.hireloop.com/sequoia%2Denterprise/careers/portfolio_careers_home.asp?fnc=comp

- Kleiner Perkins: http://www.hireloop.com/kpcb/careers/portfolio_careers_home.asp

- First Round: http://www.firstround.com/openings.html

You might want to try to find a list of reputable VCs and google their websites for any job portfolios.

Also, I was able to find my job this summer by just checking out the websites of startups I'd want to work for. The first thing most startups do when trying to hire is post job descriptions on their site.

Howdy,

The good news is that startups are actively looking for good hackers. Investors are also looking too, since that's one way they can really help their companies. So he can find cool startups and email them, or find cool investors (like YC) and work from higher up in the stream.

My startup, Xobni, is very actively looking for great hackers. We are YC alumni and recently raised a series A financing from Khosla Ventures. We're still a small team, too, so all of the benefits of working for a startup are in full force here. You can email jobs foo at xobni dot com (remove foo)!

Adam

I'd recommend your friend to attend to as many start-up events as possible. First, many start-ups use such events to recruit. Second, he may be able to find a matching partner looking for his expertise. WorkIt.com is an excellent resource if your friend is in Bay Area.

Another idea is to tell your friend to provide contracting services for start-ups. That way, he/she can test-drive the company while making a few bucks on the side.

Find VCs and ask which of their portfolio companies are hiring -- VCs are actually quite approachable if you're not trying to get them to fund your company!

So go to tech meetups, web conferences, etc. or network through friends and alumni.

Another way: most of the "cutting edge" startup blogs (37signals, GigaOm, Venture Beat, etc.) have job listings that you can subscribe to by RSS.

One tracker at SeekSift -- http://www.seeksift.com/xml/BE9a28987F/rss.xml -- is using most of those sources for its results, so you could subscribe to it, or create your own.

(Disclaimer: my own startup is behind SeekSift.com)

Startups don't often hire recruiters,

This is not true. Usually one of the first people brought in after a series-A round of financing is some sort of VP-level manager whose job is to find other people to hire. This VP often was a recruiter, or hiring manager at some point, and usually hires some sort of recruiter to help him or her find people.

Email them!

Seriously though. If you're a good hacker then other good hackers and entrepreneurs want to talk to you. Find an in. Sell yourself. Figure out a way to get a conversation. Start with startups likely to be using technologies you know. It does not need to lead immediately to a job, just get the ball rolling. Founders know other startup founders.

It definitely helps if you're genuinely interested in startups and what they're doing and look forward to talking to good hackers yourself.

A whole lot of startups post on Craigslist. Searching for "startup", "funded", etc works pretty well. Quite a few totally legit early-stage startups post there.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sof?query=startup&format=rss

One post I read, and I'm sure there are others like it, are from people with some great idea (secret, of course) and they need someone to actually do it.

Those crack me up -- what are they even bringing to the table? "You do all the work, and we'll give you a small percentage."

There is more to a startup than just code. For example, from the sounds of it the producer currently seems to be the person with the highest workload at justin.tv (except for Justin, who is working 24/7).

Of course, but what do you want to bet most people with a "great idea" have anything more to offer than that?

Before Justin.tv launched, I imagine there was a lot of coding/testing involved. Most start-ups don't need a TV producer even after they have a product.

the one thing worse than secret ideas are the "like X but for Y" startups... eg "It's like Digg, but for Nerf Herders! We've done the market research, honest!"

(sure there are exceptions to the rule; "Google, it's like AltaVista...")

the best way in the UK i find is just to send an email with your CV. Agree to work for free for a while (month?) as a tester, they will love that your enthusiasm and if you dont get a permanent job, at least you would have learnt somethin.

Work free for a month? That's insane. Steer clear of any company that expects that.

want a job?

Would most founders be interested in finding programmers through the traditional job posting/resume/interview process? I'm thinking that to get a crack at working with really excellent programmers and founders, you probably need to be connected through a network and known a bit by reputation. No, you don't have to be famous, just respected and known by a group of good peers.

I take a particular interst in this question because I'm working on a project (that doesn't deserve to be called a startup, but maybe it could be), and I need someone with kick-ass UI design and graphics skills (I wrote the backend myself, but it looks lame). I'll go through my blurred social/professional networks to see who would be into it.

Then again, I'm just looking for someone I already know and like who would dig the project and maybe want to make something of it. An actual job job, the kind that pays money, can probably afford to be more formal about this sort of thing. But would you want to be? Seems safer to go through those blurry networks at an early stage, where one bad programmer can drag everything down. and one good one can rev it up fast.

Are you sure you want to work for a startup? In my experience, working at a startup is good for one thing: learning how to manage a bunch of random stuff all happening at the same time.

You don't get paid as well as if you just worked at google or yahoo, and as an employee, your stake is usually something like .25-.75% of the company, which means if the place gets bought for 100M, you'll make out with about $120K extra, 4 years down the road.

$120K isn't anything to scoff at, but keep in mind that startups pay a lower salary, and if you scored a job at yahoo for $90K instead of $60K at the startup, after 4 years you'd have the same amount of money.

Now, if you can swing a deal where you get 10% of the company, I'd go for it. But with a percentage like that, you're gonna be employee 3, co-founding, not just "have a job at a startup."

For me, it's been a combination of craigslist and the network of people that I have worked with in the past.

Having worked for 9 companies in the last 10 years, I've found that it's more about who you know than what you know.

And if you are well connected in the internet industry AND talented, startups will find you.

Also, get your resume on the web and let the search engines index it. You'd be surprised at how many random searches will lead people to it.

Just found this article from the dotcom boom area by chance: http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/05/02/sacrifice/index2.html - is it still like that to work for a startup?

I recently discovered a site, http://buildv1.com that was built for hooking up startups with startuppers. I actually found someone from this site that worked with us for a little while.

Idea: Start a website that connect/matches founders!

Hey, that's my idea! I'm going to make a mint!

Step 1: get lots of people jobs

Step 2: ...

Step 3: Profit!

There is one...check out buildv1.com. It's still in it's infancy, but the mission is in line with the theme of this thread.

there are a fair number of postings from multiple sites specifically about startups here -

http://www.gobignetwork.com/startup-company-job/