For engineers
Zelcast is trying to be the thing the best engineers have never had. Someone whose job is their career.
We work with startups under a hundred people and we make very few introductions. This is how you get on the list. You do not need to be looking.
Applyor read why first
Zelcast represents engineers rather than filling seats. We work only with startups under a hundred people, we make very few introductions, and each one arrives with the reasons attached. Applying takes two minutes, needs no account, and is read by a person. Most people who apply hear nothing for a long time, which is the arrangement working rather than failing.
I. The best engineers are not on the market.
The strongest engineer on most teams has never applied for a job and never will. They are employed, paid well, and buried under messages written by people who have not read a line of their code.
This was never a search problem. The market can see them perfectly well. What it cannot do is reach them with anything worth opening.
II. Everyone knows who is good. Nobody is looking after them.
Every field has its short list and the people inside it can recite it from memory. What almost none of them have is somebody who knows their game before there is a deal on the table, who knows which rooms would waste them, and whose horizon is the next ten years rather than the next quarter.
Athletes worked this out a century ago. So did musicians, actors and writers. Engineering, where one person can now decide whether a company exists in three years, has not. We wrote the long version of that argument in the best engineers are athletes now.
III. On being known before you need it.
The worst moment to be found is the moment you need to be. By then you are choosing among whatever happens to be open, advised by people who met you last week, on a timeline set by somebody else’s quarter.
The alternative costs you two minutes and then nothing at all. You sit on a short list held by people who have been in the rooms. Most of the time nothing happens, which is the arrangement working rather than failing. Then one day something does, and it arrives with its reasons attached.
IV. What this is, and what it is not.
A person reads what you send. Not a filter, not a stage in a pipeline.
We will tell you to stay where you are when staying is the right answer, and that will happen more often than the alternative. We would rather send you nothing for a year than the wrong thing once, because the wrong thing once is how we become the messages you already delete.
There is no sequence, no job board, no newsletter, and nothing to keep updated.
The whole plan is to know the best engineers in the world long before anyone needs anything, and to be worth the call when they do.
Apply
Two lines are enough. Everything under them is optional and only helps us think about you properly.
After you send this you can create an account with Google to watch your place in line and get a referral link. It is not required to apply, and it changes nothing about how you are read.
Common questions
Do I have to be looking for a job?
No, and most people on our radar are not. Being known before you need anything is the entire point. If nothing fits, you hear nothing.
What do you need from me?
Your email and your LinkedIn. Everything else on the form is optional, and a GitHub link is worth adding if your best work is public.
Does it cost anything?
Nothing, ever. Companies pay us. You are not the product being sold.
How often will I hear from you?
Rarely, on purpose. When a message does arrive it is one company matched to you specifically, and if the reasons do not hold up, say so and you will not get that kind of thing again.
What if I am not senior yet?
Apply anyway. We read for what you have built and how you work, not for years in a title.
Who is behind this?
People who have founded companies, hired hundreds of engineers, and backed a few hundred startups. The judgement comes from having done it rather than from a database.
Curious how your profile reads to a startup first? Run the free Eng Scorer. Hiring rather than applying? Tell us who you need.
