Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

I've run across keyvalues.com before, and it's a great idea, but I found it didn't really help me. For one thing, there doesn't seem to be any way to filter by location (not that it would help me, since they're mostly in California).

But the bigger issue for me is that a "value" for me is either something that ought to be universal (like racial/gender equality), or a deliberate choice between valid options. For most of these values, I have no idea what the opposite choice might be. For example, GitHub picked "CUSTOMER COMES FIRST" (ironically, as their #2 value), but I'm not sure what the alternative would be. Investors come first? Make art, not products? Do any software companies have such values?

You mention on the "About" page an example of a value you originally wanted to search for, "whether they favored speed or perfection when it came to shipping code", which I think is a perfect example of a value I'd want to search for, too. Unfortunately, in the list of 50 values, I can't find any that represent either of these positions. The closest I can find are "HIGH QUALITY CODE BASE" and "FAST-PACED ENVIRONMENT", but they're not exactly opposites, and sure enough several of the companies picked both of these values, in adjacent positions. I don't see any way for companies to indicate they hold the opposite of one of these values.

Here's one possible goal for anyone writing a new software engineering job search site. Every month or so, someone posts a link to "They Write the Right Stuff" here on HN, an article about the Lockheed space shuttle software group. Make a job site that would let me find that as a career, never having heard of it and not having any prior interest in the field. For example, it could have a "speed"/"perfection" dial, and show me aerospace jobs if I turn it all the way to "perfection".

“Save that money to pay good talent more”

The whole point is all that stuff costs much less than any meaningful pay raise.

It can be project turnover. Take mine for example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16283252

It has that attribute you are complaining about, but without the problems you presume. Suppose we hired you. Perhaps a couple months pass between when the job ad is posted and when you physically show up for your first day of work. We aren't going to put projects on hold while waiting for you; we'll assign those to other people. Once you show up, we'll get you started on a project.

That project assignment won't last forever. We may decide that you are more valuable elsewhere, perhaps after you get a security clearance. (another reason we can't say much, along with plain ordinary proprietary information) Projects tend to last a year or two.

It's not as if we have no idea. We can say in general terms what kind of stuff you could work on. Telling you about a project that might be done before you start your first day of work would make no sense at all.

I wouldn't call it wildly disorganized, but the details are not perfectly predictable. There are people managing a pipeline of upcoming projects. They propose things to customers, get feedback, place bids to do the work, get contracts, set things up for doing the work, and then match up employees with projects.

I don't negotiate. I know my market rate. I say I want X and they either pay me X or I don't accept the offer.

I don't count bonuses as part of compensation when I am considering jobs. I've been burned too often by the promises of a bonus.

I also discount 401K matches that don't immediately vest. The longer they take to vest, the less I count them.

I also don't negotiate for raises. Either they keep up with market rates or I look for another job.

I agree on that first point. The goal is not to attract the maximum number of job seekers. Driving away people who would be unhappy is good.

I suspect that "always bringing politics into the job" and "bringing non work related stuff into the job" are not the real cause of your dislike. Can you confirm that you would reject both Google and Facebook due to being excessively political? We're far less political at work than they are. We didn't fire our Bernie supporter.

There are no red flags. We exclusively fly the American flag.

I keep seeing that people suspect a lack of a salary range indicates nefarious intent, but it's not like that. User rb808 had it right in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16555622 when he commented that "if you put a typical range you wont get the best people. If you put a high number out you get every nutter in town applying."

I did drop a few hints which you ignored, but the salary range spans more than 6 dB. Everybody seems to underestimate us, and glassdoor's obsolete data doesn't help, but that isn't totally a bad thing. I have no interest in wasting time on people who just spam all the job ads that offer large salaries. I get enough spammy stuff as it is... no, web development experience isn't going to cut it.

The value that you provide to one company is not the same as the value that you provide to another company. Consider two companies and two developers. One developer does C++11 and one company wants that. One developer does C# and one company wants that. Applying to the matching companies, perhaps both people are offered $200,000. Applying to the non-matching companies, perhaps both people are offered $100,000. There is no reason to be offended or assume nefarious intent when you get a low offer during a career change. Heart surgeons and stock traders may both get paid well, but a heart surgeon who switches his career to stock trading should not expect prior experience and pay to be at all related to value in the new career.