How to Write Engineering Job Posts That Actually Work
I've read thousands of engineering job posts. Literally thousands. And I can tell you with absolute certainty: most of them are terrible.
Not "could be better" terrible. I mean "actively repelling the people you want to hire" terrible.
I worked for many startups. I've seen the hiring side and the getting-hired side. I've watched brilliant engineers scroll past job posts that were actually great roles, and I've watched mediocre roles pull in incredible candidates because someone took 30 minutes to write a decent post.
Here's what actually works.
The "Rockstar Ninja" Problem Is Worse Than You Think
It's not just that "rockstar ninja 10x developer" sounds cringe. It signals something specific to engineers: this company doesn't know what they actually need.
When an engineer reads "rockstar", they think: "So the requirements are vibes-based, the role is undefined, and I'll probably end up doing three jobs". And they're usually right.
We analyzed job posts across our database and compared them against actual application rates. Posts with terms like "rockstar", "ninja", "guru", or "wizard" had 34% fewer applications from engineers with 5+ years of experience.
What Engineers Actually Want to See
1. The actual tech stack, not a wish list. "Experience with React, Node.js, PostgreSQL, and AWS" is fine. Listing 15 technologies tells every engineer you either don't know what you use or you expect one person to know everything.
2. Salary range. Full stop. Posts with salary ranges get 2.5x more applications than posts without them. Just put the real range. You'll get fewer applicants, but they'll be the right ones.
3. What they'll actually work on in the first 6 months. "You'll be responsible for building scalable distributed systems" tells me nothing. "You'll migrate our payment processing from a monolith to event-driven microservices, targeting 99.99% uptime by Q3" tells me exactly what I'm signing up for.
4. Team size and structure. Who will I report to? How big is the team? Am I the most senior person or the most junior?
The Format That Gets Results
Opening paragraph (2-3 sentences): What the company does and what problem this role solves. No mission statement.
What you'll do (3-5 bullets): Specific projects and responsibilities for the first 6-12 months.
What you'll need (3-5 bullets): Hard requirements only.
What's nice to have (2-3 bullets): Genuinely optional stuff.
Comp and benefits (be specific): Salary range, equity if applicable, differentiating benefits.
That's it. No "About Us" section longer than the job description.
Real Numbers From Real Posts
- Posts under 600 words filled 40% faster than posts over 1,000 words
- Posts with salary ranges had 2.5x the application rate
- Posts mentioning specific projects had 60% higher response rates from passive candidates
- Posts requiring 7+ years had almost identical candidate quality to posts requiring 4+ years, just with fewer applicants
The One Thing Nobody Does (But Should)
Include a paragraph about what's hard about the job.
"Our codebase has 8 years of technical debt in the billing system. You'll need patience and strong opinions about incremental refactoring."
Engineers respect honesty. They've all walked into jobs that were nothing like the description. When you're upfront about the challenges, you build trust before the first interview.
Write for the person you want to hire. Speak their language. Respect their time. Give them the information they need to decide if it's worth a conversation.