How do I find companies worth working for?
Build the list before you look at openings. Pick thirty to fifty organisations on the work they do and the people who stay, then watch those for roles. Judging employers one at a time, in the order they happen to advertise, spends your judgement on whatever was posted this week.
Build the list before you look at openings
Most people search openings and then research the company that comes up. That inverts the effort. You spend your judgement on whatever happened to be advertised this week.
Do it the other way round. Spend an evening building a list of thirty to fifty organisations you would genuinely join, then watch those for openings. The list is reusable and it takes the decision out of the moment when a posting appears and you feel rushed.
Signals that hold up from the outside
- Tenure. Look at current staff on LinkedIn and count how many have been there over three years. Consistently short stays in one team is the clearest warning you can get from outside.
- Whether they ship. Changelogs, release notes, public repositories and product updates tell you whether the company does things.
- How they write the job ad. A specific, honest posting that names the problems usually comes from a team that knows what it wants.
- Where their people go next. If leavers move to companies you respect, that is a reference.
- How they fund themselves. Revenue, last raise and headcount growth together tell you how much runway pressure the job will carry.
- Patterns in reviews rather than scores. Five people independently describing the same management problem is data. A 3.4 average is not.
Signals that tell you nothing
- Perks, office photographs and anything described as a culture of ownership.
- Best places to work badges, most of which are paid for or self-nominated.
- Headcount growth on its own, which is as likely to mean chaos as health.
- A high review score at a company small enough for the reviews to be organised.
- The founder's public presence, which correlates with nothing about the day job.
How we do it
We work from a curated list of companies rather than the whole internet, and monitor their applicant tracking systems directly. Openings reach you attached to the company that posted them and the date the posting first appeared, so you are judging an employer rather than a listing.
Updated 2026-09-06