I have 4 years of full stack experience. Do people tailor their resume for NYC companies?
There are a few reasons for this (smaller companies don't want to risk flying you in and it not working out, longer interview process, recruiters limiting searches to a geographic area), but my advice would be to just take the plunge and move here without a gig. My partner and I made the jump that way many years ago and had new jobs within weeks. I don't think we're special, it's just a testament to how valuable tech sector is in NYC at the moment and how limited the talent pool really is.
You have a very employable set of skills and the market in NYC is great at the moment, so this is a low risk move.
I very much enjoyed forcing a timetable on possible employers, as I got choices all at the same time.
I don't always enjoy recruiters. In this case, mine was very valuable!
The city is expensive and there is a lot of competition from recent graduates as well as talented people attracted to the magnetic island at the center of the world.
It does feel like a constant race, but the city is full of art and inspiration and I have learned and grown a lot here and recommend coming for the experience, even if you decide to leave afterwards.
E.B. White’s Here is New York still applies: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10814.Here_Is_New_York
—Designer with some full stack experience (HTML/CSS/Python/Django)
– designer as well
One thing to consider is that it's a bigger bet than trying to recruit someone that's a little more local. They'd have to fly you out and it's not uncommon for people to say they want to move, but then decide it's not for them after going through the entire interview pipeline.
Larger companies are more willing to take on this risk, so if you're only applying for smaller ones, that might be a reason why you're not hearing back.
Try this: find a recruiter at the companies that you want to apply for on LinkedIn and message them directly. Convey both your interest in working for their company and your desire to be in NYC.
Have you partnered yet with a recruiting company? I personally just went through TripleByte and they could use a few more NYC partners. They do their own pre-selection of candidates to save everyone involved a lot of time. Another good one is FunctionalWorks. Meetups are also pretty good for making organic connections with higher-quality devs. Every time I go to a tech meetup at least 3 or 4 employers are represented and hiring.
This also applies to all the companies in general. If a company uses Applicant Tracking Systems like Taleo, Workday you can rest assured anyone with an existing job would not apply. It's really time consuming.
Also, mid-senior is definitely rare, like it means they have a good job already and unless there are really good perks like flexible WFH etc apart from the compensation, it's definitely hard.
Recruiters have been a mixed bag. They're very time consuming, but tend to have better access to people who are currently employed and passively looking, which is where most of the best mid-senior people are.
I've done some speaking at meetups and we made a junior hire off of one. I've found the more niche meetups to be more likely to have stronger people, the more general web / rails / ruby ones are dominated by recent boot camp grads looking for their first gig (nothing against those people, we hire them, but we also desire more senior people too).
HN's who's hiring has been great for finding sharp junior people with high potential.
Hiring is definitely a tough nut to crack. Personal referrals are by far the best source to get solid people quickly, but it's also a finite pool. Recruiters are definitely a mixed bag. I would suggest also sending a representative to a job fair (face-to-face still works!). It sounds like you're doing the best you can besides creating some really unique opportunity.
We had some luck bringing in people interested in functional programming, but ended up having to go heavy on junior devs since that's what's easy to hire for. We had some mid-level and a couple senior people which were hard to come by.
It's going to be a grind no matter how you approach it. All I can suggest is to make a really compelling offer, technologically, financially, or otherwise. Also consider finding older developers interested in part-time or remote work.
I'd be happy to talk with you, my company is always keen to speak with talented engineers.