Ask HN: Where do you find the interesting jobs?

I would kill for a job that feels even remotely useful or interesting.

Everything is crypto "web 3" bubble, fintech, or recruiters being very vague about "unicorn" startups that are just making useless services that clearly won't go anywhere.

I've also found that interviews don't tell you much about reality. I've changed jobs a few times in recent years, every time I had interviews being told about interesting projects, great practices and so on, but once actually there was made to work on mind-numbing useless stuff.

It honestly makes me feel like my skills and time are being wasted. I'll be honest and say I consider myself to be pretty good at what I do (and it's been confirmed at my past jobs where I quickly get that reputation), but I just don't know where to find interesting opportunities that don't feel like either a grift or being a parasite making money out of arguably evil things.

How do you find interesting gigs?

Ask friends who know what you're interested in if they've heard of anything.

Search the web for startups and small companies in areas you find interesting and approach them directly.

Sign up for newsletters on topics that interest you and then read up on any companies mentioned.

You might also want to try to steer your skillset in the direction of things that interest you while doing time at a "boring" company.

I'm assuming you're not looking for "conventionally fun" business areas (showbiz, gaming etc) where the competition for applicants is extra fierce. But be prepared to take a lower pay to get into a field that attracts you.

I was lucky that my open source contributions led to some interesting short and long term engagements. If I'm already into something, it may be that I find it interesting - no need to search.

Not the reply you're looking for, but it's a topic I'm interested in. My current situation is that I'm employed in a startup that might be killed by the end of the year, if the next round of investing is found. If there is money - I'd like to stay and work here and at that point won't be interested in changing positions, but I need to think about options too at this point.

My line of thinking is as follows:

1) Follow "who is hiring" monthly posts on HN

2) Look on LinkedIn ads; do research on company which is hiring (if possible because sometimes agencies won't tell - in which case I'm probably not considering)

All ads are to be filtered by $TECH_STACK + Full-Remote.

Happy to follow this thread to find more interesting places.

> I've also found that interviews don't tell you much about reality.

Always ask to see code and talk to engineers about what their days look like. I believe there are very few legitimate reasons they won't show you their code, but more likely if they're refusing, it's because they're hiding something. When talking to an engineer, ask them how their code goes from idea to production and have it explained in detail. This will tell you what type of management they have, what testing/review/deployment practices, etc.. As a bonus, I also like to ask my future peers what they don't like about their job or what they'd like to change.

I agree most jobs are some form of shite, but there are good ones. Being more picky during the interview phase should hopefully allow you to find some of those while weeding out the bad quicker.