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I haven't done exactly this but I have "cold" contacted people who I had some sort of connection with - same college, common friends, etc.

I usually mention this in my e-mail saying something like "I'm contacting you because we both did X so I thought it might be alright to bother you."

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Thanks, that makes sense. But if you don't know anyone, why not find some developer and their email address (a bit of Google-Fu will do it) and contact them?

To me, it seems polite enough.

Wouldn't _you_ answer such an email if it was polite and seemed to come from a serious developer?

Of course I would -- it's hard to find people. Some companies give referral bonuses to incent their employees to recruit on their behalf. If the idea is to get "inside information", I think it will fail (or at least, hope it will). Not treating company information as secret (especially to strangers) is a sign of a dysfunctional organization.

If it's just "feel" that you are looking for -- then I think you'll get that.

Yes, it's just feel. A peppy intelligent response will give me a more positive feel than no response or a cold, guarded response.

That is far from a good indicator, but it is a start.

And if the communication goes well, I can schedule a call or continue the email correspondence.

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