Massive list of engineering recruiting channels

This list is for you if...

• You don't have enough top-of-funnel engineering candidates
• You want to pursue channels with higher quality candidates
• You'd like channels where you can attract engineers rather than chasing them
• You want to hire engineers from under-represented groups in technology

I leave it to you to figure out how to source from each of these channels. I've sorted to the top the channels for which I am comfortable sharing my conversion rates with you.

Massive list of all hiring channels

• Cold emails to engineers (50% reply-rate and 17% interested in a call is achievable with a well-written email)
• Email newsletters – for example js weekly, node weekly, ruby weekly, and so on for your whole stack (2% click through rate is achievable with a well-written ad)
• HN who's hiring monthly (#5 post with 30 applicants/month is achievable with a well-written post)
• Airbnb
• Angellist – A-list
• Bootcamp grads
• California layoffs notifications
• Conference tours (keynote or give a talk)
• Conferences – lanyrd: speakers, attendees, sponsors can email attendees
• Contest for e.g. 1 set of free conference tickets to Velocity for example (very expensive but cool!); and 1 set of free tickets for under-represented group in tech. Also worth including: housing, for example on a not creepy teammate's couch.
• Couchsurfing
• Coursera grads
  • e.g. with certs from...
  • Algorithms Specialization
  • Functional Programming Principles in Scala
  • Machine Learning
  • Algorithms on Graphs
• Craigslist
• Events: print index cards with the short blurb of your open positions and give them to your team to put up in the women's/gender-neutral/men's bathroom stalls and urinals. Give them tape.
• Facebook graph search for CS grads who are friends of friends
• Facebook groups for your area: hackathon groups, new to the bay area, new grad $gradyear, breaking into tech, job searching, technical interviews
• For yourself and each teammate...
  • Facebook friends
  • Github/BitBucket: contributors to your OSS repos
  • Github/BitBucket: issue-openers on your OSS repos
  • Github/BitBucket: star-ers of your OSS repos
  • Google contacts
  • Twitter lead cards
  • Twitter: your followers; people you follow; people they follow; people who follow your competitors; people your competitors follow.
  • University alumni facebook groups; email lists; in-person events
  • University professors who recommend you their top students
  • University recruiting: resume reviews; give tech talks; give unofficial tech talks; visit unofficially
  • University student group email lists; official paid recruiting programs; facebook groups; etc
  • University hackathons
• Games: advertising inside of various games, ideally with >50% ratio of women via Willem Wijnans
• Github/BitBucket: OSS contribs to OSS projects you admire
• Github/BitBucket: people who open issues on OSS projects you admire
• Github/BitBucket: people who star OSS projects you admire
• Goodreads/Amazon: friends of people who've reviewed eng books
• Goodreads/Amazon: people who've reviewed engineering books
• Google Plus
• Hackathons: attending them, contacting past winners
• HackerRank.com, LeetCode.com, Interviewing.io, projecteuler.net
• Hired
• HN articles about your stack + interesting eng decisions - authors, commenters
• HN who's searching for a job
• Instagram: hashtags, geotags
• IRC
• Linkedin: traditional searches (ew); email your friends who you'd want to work with again; email friends who know many of your target type of engineer and ask for intros. I made a tool to help you do this, email me about it, I'll run it for you for free :) (david [åt] dtrejo dot com)
• Livecoding on Twitch, liveedu.tv, YouTube,
• Meetups:
  • meetup.com;
  • artisanal meetup websites
  • your own meetups (e.g. start organizing your city's offline first meetup)
  • arrive prepared: know roughly who you want to talk to
• Medium articles about your technologies - authors, commenters
• Medium articles exposing bad workplaces - authors, commenters
• Product Hunt – product creators who don't seem to have solid business models
• Quora answerers for technologies in your stack
• Reddit – people who share their absurdly low salary and impressive achievements
• Reddit r/programming and every other relevant r/ -> Post engineering articles with CTA (call to action).
• Reddit, monthly who's hiring for each language you use (e.g. r/C_Programming)
• Referrals: Searchlight meetings aka sourcing sessions (used at Stripe, Dropbox, and more. via Ivan Kirigin list ways to get them, link to searchlight instructions
• Retargeted ads using emails you've found elsewhere (discount by # of people who run ad-blockers)
• Skype search
• Skype search (via Atallah)
• Slack groups that are public: hamsterpad, slacklist, chitchats
• Snapchat
• Spotify: spell your message with songs via Willem Wijnans
• StackExchange Data Explorer via Willem Wijnans
• Stackoverflow answerers for technologies in your stack
• Startups in general because they underpay their engineers and give out equity that is more illiquid than typical
• Startups who haven't publicly raised in the last year
• Strava
• Trust Velocity via Philip Morgan
  • Mainstream press
  • Media interview
  • Podcast guesting (combined with great CTA)
  • Single guest post on major publication
  • Lead magnet on trusted 3rd party website
  • Regularly showing up in prospect's email inbox with relevant content
  • "Lumpy Envelope" campaign (e.g. how Matasano gives books to candidates who aren't experienced enough yet)
  • Job aid, calculator
• Udemy grads (https://www.udacity.com/hire-talent) - free to hire
  • e.g. with certs from...
  • Design of Computer Programs
  • Intro to Algorithms
  • Computability, Complexity & Algorithms
• Vimeo – speakers, commenters
• Volunteering events – e.g. teaching kids to code
• WiFi SSID via Willem Wijnans
• Write a book for engineers (personal experience: works great)
• Youtube – speakers, maybe commenters

What would make this list more useful for you? Email me: david [åt] dtrejo dot com.

May engineers be with you,
David