The burning question — how do I get into the show?
What we look for when curating our showcase audience
If you’re an engineer looking for a new career opportunity, apply now to attend one of our in-person startup showcases to meet founders of break-out startups hiring for talent like you.
And just like that, we’re gearing up for our next showcase! On March 12th, we’ll be back in San Francisco with a fantastic new set of founders working on break-out startups (hint: GenAI for med, video ads, & IT Ops 👀).
Every time we announce a show, we get the same question — how do I get in? There are three general factors we consider:
Factor 1: Relevant Experience to Founders’ Needs
We receive thousands of applications from talented engineers and operators for our 250 showcase spots. We think of our showcases as a two-sided marketplace; we want to make as many great matches as possible, and that requires intentional curation. We can bring together a room full of the best hardware engineers in-market, but that means nothing to founders looking to scale their ML platforms. We curate our audience to be most relevant to the hiring needs of our 12 founders each month, saving 80% of the spots in the room for software engineers, AI engineers, and research scientists. The remaining spots are allocated to exceptional business and operating talent, including product managers, designers, account executives, and chief of staff.
Factor 2: Years of Experience
We’ve also found that we’re most successful in matching jobseekers who have 4-8+ years of industry experience and have spent time growing something. If you’re a former founder, founding engineer, ML lead at a big tech company, or have spent the past 8 years doing deep research, you’re likely a good fit for our showcase. We look for builders and doers — people who demonstrated ability to take initiative. Big plus if you have experience scaling startups, as most of the founders we feature are hitting escape velocity!
Factor 3: Referrals
We believe that great people know great people — that’s why we take referrals from our community members seriously. Our community has grown organically through word of mouth. If someone in the community whom we trust has referred you, we take that as a strong signal (and a reminder to refer your talented friends to attend our showcase!).
Didn’t get invited this time around? You can still engage with our community. Outside of the showcases, we get many requests from our portfolio & community founders for candidates that span from talented hardware engineers to strong chief of staff candidates. We refer candidates through our Bespoke Matching Process, and when you apply to our showcase, you have the option to opt-in. If we think you’d be a good fit for a founder we know, we’ll ask if you’re interested and make the connection for you.
Getting one of the 250 spots to attend the showcase is competitive. We receive lots of applications everyday and we do our best to review them on a rolling basis leading up to the showcase. Being at the showcase is the most efficient way to get connected with breakout founders, and when you're in the community, we do our best to make tailored connections for you when we hear of new roles.
Apply to attend our March 12th showcase in SF here.