The reason for setting up Hacker Jobs UK in the first place is because there is a sincere lack of high quality job boards available for the tech community in the UK.

There are plenty of options for job seekers out there but they are either saturated by recruiters or the jobs are incredibly generic and middle of the road.

There is a clear distinction between your regular Software Developer and the kind that read Hacker News on a daily basis as well as commit to personal projects on github because that's their idea of fun. It's the latter we want to accommodate as it's the latter that is largely ignored within the current market place offerings.

WHO WE ARE

So, who the hell are we and what qualifies us to decide what Hackers want?

This site was developed by a long-time lurker of Hacker News and a regular attendee of Hacker News London. @JonGilbraith is a brilliantly passionate developer with a keen eye for detail and a sincere understanding of why it's important to make things work well.

The other side of the coin is the polar opposite to Jon. I'm @StevieBuckley and I'm a former Tech Recruitment consultant who has since moved into Web Project Management. I made a name for myself waxing lyrically about how I felt the recruitment industry was drastically broken and badly needed to be disrupted. I am responsible for ensuring the site works for both employers & job seekers alike as well as abusing my extensive contact list to make sure the world and his brother hears about and starts frequenting Hacker Jobs UK.

Jon & I sat together in a pub after another successful Hacker News London meet-up and started discussing how some of the current 'popular' job boards make millions of pounds every year despite advertising mediocre jobs on ugly sites with terrible UI/UX. We concluded that the primary reason these sites were just terrible examples of the industry is because they catered primarily for their number one revenue stream which is the recruitment industry.

A few pints later, just as the Ballmer Peak had set in, Jon & I had absolutely nailed everything that was wrong with job boards and we decided that between the two of us we simply had to do something about it.

WHAT WE OFFER

The first iteration of Hacker Jobs UK feels relatively similar to every other job site out there and we've released a basic level intentionally. We will constantly iterate and have some incredible tricks up our sleeve in terms of how we'll turn this site into more than just another job site. On that note, we are always genuinely interested in hearing what our users think does and does not work so if you want to provide your feedback then email steve@hackerjobs.co.uk

We toyed with the idea of simply banning recruiters from posting here but the route we've chosen instead is to raise the barrier of entry significantly for recruiters who want to post here. There are a tiny percentage of Tech Recruiters who actually know what Developers want and it would be counter-productive to prevent these guys from posting real jobs.

If you're a recruiter and you're reading this then you are already on the right track to joining the exclusive club of 'recruiters who aren't soulless bottom-feeders'. Email us and tell us why you deserve to be on our site.

OBAIR

The observant of you will have spotted 'Powered by Obair' on our footer. Obair is our 'parent' company. We are Obair, we own Obair. For those of you following us from the beginning who are undoubtedly thinking 'why did it take them six months to build a job site?' well your questions will be answered by Obair.

I'm not going to cover it here just yet but the plan is to use Hacker Jobs UK as a launchpad for a much larger and farther reaching service. We want to single-handedly force the job site market to raise their game and via Obair we think we've discovered a way to do just that.

NOW WHAT?

Browse our jobs, post a new job, tell your friends, give us feedback, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook.

This site is designed for Developers by Developers. We don't plan on selling out and pandering to the recruitment industry. In fact, if everything goes to plan we'll have the recruitment industry attempting to shut us down in no time.

Stick around and we'll go places together. Weird, wonderful, profitable places.

- Steve