It is an interesting idea, but this may be limited in its use for small startups that hire only 1 or 2 programmers or for someone willing to wait. My reasons being: Only a small sliver of developers visit sites like HN. They are mostly busy working, going home to kids and such. Getting the news out that you are hiring, to this larger set of candidates is a real problem. Which is where the traditional methods (including job web sites) become crucial. If you use any job borads (like Monster), or a headhunter, it is hard to pipe a problem through them. They are not setup for this. If you had asked me to solve a problem just to find the email to apply to a job, I would have not done so, just because I do not have time to do it. If I were a kid out of college, or did not have time constraints, I would have loved to. But where I am today, I would rather send the resume in and talk to the hiring manager.