Ask HN: How do you hire top talent in 2019?

1. Be a top company - either have a big name people want to work for, or a (provably) talented team that do notable work. Everyone bullshits their way around this, but most devs sniff that out pretty quickly.

2. Pay more than others.

It's really as simple as that. When my ex-employers were well-known to people in our circles, we had a much-larger pick of the litter, and when we messaged other solid developers about the role, they were interested in interviewing. When we were either a smaller company or not notable, if we needed someone that could hit the ground running or take a commanding role, we paid above market rates instead of paying out of our ass for recruiters or long-term job ads. Two jobs ago, my employer "negotiated" a 10% rate with a local recruiter based on first-year salary, and were shocked when the person we hired was shit. They put the same job ad out again, with that rate on top of the salary, and ended up hiring a really good dev.

#2 worked the best for me in the past, and it shouldn't be a shock, but getting this to work came with its own challenges:

* Getting an employer to pay more than what is absolutely necessary. We all want the best dev team, but we don't all need the best team. Furthermore, most people don't care about the long-term issues an inexperienced/bad hire can make. They'd rather take the risk and play the hiring lottery than pay a bit extra.

* Having faith in your team to pick the best candidates. This is really hard, and everyone has an opinion, even twenty-something graduates who have never hired a person in their life, let alone a developer.

* Accepting that the people that have attended the interview aren't good enough. Most of the time, in my experience, people have been hired because they need a warm body in the chair, and they've had no other bites.

How elite are you talking? Is it a case where you're doing and you want to hire (this one guy at Facebook who invented X)? Or just "really good devs"? This makes a difference. For key people targeted poaching may work (it will cost you more than normal hiring of 1 person, but probably not even 3x more, and if it's a truly key position you may need the one expert on the subject). If it's a more general position, but you just want someone smart enough, you can try asking your top 30% or so employees to ask all their friends if they're looking, or if the 3 or so people they or those friends would judge to be their best ex-coworkers are looking. You need a referral from someone who's worked with the person at some point, to ascertain their work (not social) performance, but it doesn't need to be a 1st degree referral, because your employees' immediate network, regardless if they're a fit for you, are probably pretty smart.

If location is an issue (you're not in a metropolis and your location is not known for tech) contact the local university's career services department.

1. What does the company do? Is it interesting and cool?

2. Who are the people? Will I enjoy working for/with them?

3. Location: I want good climate and smart/rich people living there.

4. Vacation: 4 weeks minimum.

5. Salary: if the above is all 'yes', then I could accept as low as $150k in bay area. If there's one 'no', it's better be at least $200k. If more than one 'no', I'm unlikely to be interested, regardless of the pay.

EDIT: since you got some attention here on HN, why don't you post a link to the job description?