I have a role for an intermediate/senior Elixir developer.

The role is based in Sweden (no exceptions, compliance reasons). Stockholm is preferred, flexible on-site is preferred but they can be open for remote for the right candidate.

The company is a small security product company making large moves. They are taking their cloud platform from Ruby and Go to Elixir. And they are developing hardware projects with Nerves. Significant experience with Elixir is required. Ideally involving Phoenix and Ecto, kind of standard. Experience in Nerves is a big plus, experience in Ruby and Go for the purposes of the migration are beneficial but not necessary.

I have worked with the company in a consulting capacity and now help them recruit for this role. I really like working with them. They have a scrappy approach and a lively culture in a field that is often suffocatingly boring. They are happy to support the community and ecosystem.

Again, Sweden only for now.

Finding Elixir

Privilege disclaimer: Outgoing white bearded geek who has poked computers since the 90s. I fit the mold for what a lot of people expect and want for a developer. I haven't had to deal with a real job interview in over 15 years. My time finding and obtaining work will be easier than most other people's.

You find Elixir in the cracks. In the substrate. In many tiny companies, some medium-sized ones and a really small number of really large ones. In unexpected and expected places.

I've never had any luck treating the job or contracting market as a numbers game. Though it certainly is that as well. Most of my clients have been companies no-one has ever heard of, except in their domain. Whether car-tuning, construction cameras, agile consulting, security systems, building management, recycling, company board evaluation, live broadcast shading. The domains are incredibly diverse. Most of these companies wouldn't typically put out a job ad. Many of the companies have come to me because of my public footprint. Some I've found through the community. Many by reference from a peer in the ecosystem. Some because I was the only Elixir freelancer in some broker's list.

This is sales and marketing. I've occasionally done prospecting (finding companies that could be a fit) and done outreach to them. The hit rate is abysmal but not zero. But I fairly often find productive connections at the BEAM-related conferences and if I was open to employment my net would be significantly wider. I don't go around looking for clients really. I am just trying to connect with people and find joyful interactions, usually that also leads to enthusiastic opportunities.

The market is hard now. There is a lot of competition for any posted job. I don't know if it is feasible but my experience tells me that a more personal approach and an investment in your personal, no rather, professional brand is probably a good move. Write about things, contribute to the ecosystem. In my experiences a contribution to Phoenix or some well-liked bit of the ecosystem has a higher bang in your Elixir CV than having built a todo-app. There are many of us out there that can do things with Phoenix. It is not significantly harder to fix papercuts in your preferred testing library or improve the docs of Ash or whatever. And it gives disproportionate trust compared to professional work.

Developers and tech decision makers have respect for the open source projects we use. By being one of the person who contributes to open source you are moving yourself into the spotlight of that respect. It doesn't have to make sense in terms of what it actually proves about you. What you've done at work over the last few years is likely more impressive than whatever your open source contributions are, for most people. Most people don't have contributions on their record. That should be fine. But from a marketing perspective. You show up with sparkles if you have open source in your pocket. Particularly in such an open source-oriented ecosystem as Elixir.

Physical events, remote meetups, community spaces. This is where connections happen. If you don't have peers you chat with in the Elixir community and you want to find work. It'll be hard. It can be hard with a really solid peer group. Connections and people help. Especially as our community is absolutely remote-first and very distributed. Not all companies are remote-first but the ecosystem and community is global and relatively sparsely populated which means you usually want to cast a global net. This can also be scary of course, for various practical reasons.

If I'm wrong it is more efficient to trawl for postings and apply according to the process and jump through all the interview hoops and eventually hopefully land something. If I'm right then the investment in networking and public works is as good or better for finding work. I think there are people who have a very hard time doing things my way. So go with what fits for you but I think the investment in your professional presence goes way beyond finding a single job and it compounds. Finding a job through interview grind will leave you at zero again for the next time. I don't think that's the best way. You need to be able to grow your reputation over time, not start pitching again from zero. And CVs aren't quite enough in my experience.

This post is less coherent than I'd like. Please tell me what I've missed or where I'm wrong. You can get to me on the Fediverse where I'm @lawik@fosstodon.org or by responding to this email to lars@underjord.io.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate you.

The Elixir shirt is now shipping on-demand, you can just buy it at oswag.org. Our little shirt operation. Blessed by core teams everywhere.