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Job Boards

Now that you're ready to apply for jobs, you need to know where to look!

If you have any friends or family who work in tech, you should ask them for advice, introductions and referrals, as personal connections are the best ways to get an in.

But job boards are where you'll find the most job openings. As you look at job posts, don't take "requirements" too seriously: if a company asks for 2 years of experience, they're often open to considering someone with much less if the candidate fits the bill in other ways. And if they're looking for a Python developer but you've done C# and JavaScript and can show them that you're capable of picking up Python quickly, it's very possible to get in the door. For that matter, don't limit yourself to only applying to jobs in languages where you are familiar; because there are so many programming languages, most jobs will be in languages you haven't used — yet. And don't limit yourself to developer roles — there are many great opportunities for career paths or even just getting your foot in the door in QA, developer support, project management, etc.

Also, not every job employers are hiring for is posted publicly, and a lot of companies have internal job boards or postings. Look on the employment or career pages of individual tech companies. If they have a senior position posted on a job board, you may find a more junior position on their website.

Search Terms​​

Here are some search terms to use on job boards, no matter where you look:

  • junior
  • junior developer
  • developer
  • web developer
  • javascript -sr -senior
  • c# -sr -senior
  • javascript
  • c#
  • qa
  • tester
  • technical support
  • software engineer
  • software developer

And finally, here is a list of job boards that have tech jobs in Portland, Seattle, and remote positions:

Portland​​

Seattle​​

Remote / Anywhere​​

Freelancing​​

Mailing Lists​​

You might also subscribe to mailing lists where jobs are often announced:

Staffing Agencies​

Job Board Alerts​

When you find a few job boards that you like and check-in on regularly, you can set up email alerts for specific search queries and job titles to get an aggregate of job postings that fit your search criteria sent directly to your email. While you’ll likely still need to do some manual searching, this can be a great way to reduce the amount that you have to do on job boards each week to find great roles to apply to that interest you.

If there are certain companies you are interested in working with, you can also see if they have a mailing list or set up alerts on sites like LinkedIn, Indeed, or Google Jobs to get notified when that company posts a new job. You can also sign up for the mailing list for staffing agencies that share jobs you are interested in.