Hiring trends: what 25,304 Hacker News hiring posts show
Every month, companies post openings in Hacker News’ “Who’s Hiring” thread. We parsed Jul 2015 to Feb 2025 to see which technologies startups hire for, how remote and contract work changed, and what they pay.
Most mentioned technologies
Posts mentioning each technology, Jul 2015–Feb 2025
Mentions across all 25,304 posts. A single post can mention several technologies.
Why AI/ML isn’t here: our keyword matcher flagged 73% of all posts as AI/ML, which says more about false matches on the letters “ai” than about hiring. We leave it out rather than publish a misleading number.
Totals favour technologies that were big in 2016–2018, when HN hiring threads were busiest. The next section corrects for that.
Rising and falling stacks
Share of each year’s posts that mention a technology: 2017 (peak HN hiring volume) against 2024, the last full year in our data.
Gained share
Next.js (from 2 posts in 2017 to 4.1% of posts), TypeScript (3.0% → 18.5% of posts), Terraform (1.8% → 5.0% of posts), Rust (3.9% → 9.6% of posts).
| Technology | Posts 2017 | Posts 2024 | Share 2017 | Share 2024 | Change in share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Next.js | 2 | 32 | 0.0% | 4.1% | new since 2017 |
| TypeScript | 215 | 144 | 3.0% | 18.5% | +518% |
| Terraform | 131 | 39 | 1.8% | 5.0% | +175% |
| Rust | 279 | 75 | 3.9% | 9.6% | +148% |
| Kotlin | 69 | 17 | 1.0% | 2.2% | +127% |
| Vue | 126 | 23 | 1.8% | 3.0% | +69% |
| Kubernetes | 347 | 50 | 4.8% | 6.4% | +33% |
| Go | 882 | 95 | 12.3% | 12.2% | -1% |
| PostgreSQL | 1,200 | 120 | 16.7% | 15.4% | -8% |
| Python | 1,701 | 170 | 23.6% | 21.8% | -8% |
| React | 1,826 | 164 | 25.4% | 21.1% | -17% |
| AWS | 1,179 | 97 | 16.4% | 12.5% | -24% |
| Django | 413 | 33 | 5.7% | 4.2% | -26% |
| Node.js | 599 | 41 | 8.3% | 5.3% | -37% |
| .NET | 568 | 36 | 7.9% | 4.6% | -41% |
| Swift | 199 | 12 | 2.8% | 1.5% | -44% |
| iOS | 861 | 43 | 12.0% | 5.5% | -54% |
| Docker | 711 | 32 | 9.9% | 4.1% | -58% |
| Android | 647 | 24 | 9.0% | 3.1% | -66% |
| Ruby | 1,608 | 59 | 22.4% | 7.6% | -66% |
| Java | 1,947 | 63 | 27.1% | 8.1% | -70% |
| PHP | 452 | 12 | 6.3% | 1.5% | -75% |
| Angular | 555 | 8 | 7.7% | 1.0% | -87% |
Share = posts mentioning the technology ÷ all posts that year (7,193 in 2017, 779 in 2024). Raw counts fell for almost everything because HN thread participation dropped after 2018 and we sampled fewer months in later years, so compare shares, not counts. Click a column to sort.
The remote work trend
Share of posts offering remote work, by month.
Share of posts offering remote work
Show the data as a table
| Month | Remote share |
|---|---|
| Jul 2015 | 18.4% |
| Aug 2015 | 19.7% |
| Nov 2015 | 20.9% |
| May 2016 | 23.6% |
| Jun 2016 | 22.4% |
| Jul 2016 | 20.4% |
| Aug 2016 | 19.6% |
| Sep 2016 | 20.6% |
| Oct 2016 | 23.0% |
| Nov 2016 | 19.0% |
| Jan 2017 | 22.3% |
| Feb 2017 | 20.0% |
| Apr 2017 | 23.2% |
| May 2017 | 17.9% |
| Jul 2017 | 21.0% |
| Sep 2017 | 24.9% |
| Oct 2017 | 24.8% |
| Nov 2017 | 23.0% |
| Dec 2017 | 24.7% |
| Jan 2018 | 24.1% |
| Mar 2018 | 25.2% |
| Apr 2018 | 26.8% |
| May 2018 | 23.1% |
| Oct 2018 | 26.7% |
| Nov 2018 | 29.1% |
| Jan 2019 | 27.5% |
| May 2019 | 28.7% |
| Mar 2020 | 52.3% |
| May 2020 | 54.2% |
| Jun 2020 | 62.6% |
| Aug 2020 | 70.2% |
| Nov 2023 | 67.4% |
| Dec 2023 | 65.4% |
| May 2024 | 59.0% |
| Jul 2024 | 55.1% |
| Feb 2025 | 59.2% |
Remote-friendly posts rose from 18% in Jul 2015 to a peak of 70.2% in Aug 2020, and stood at 59.2% in Feb 2025, the last month in our data.
The “return to office” story shows up in the data, but more than half of HN posts still offered remote work. If you hire for startup-style roles, expect candidates to ask for it.
Contract and C2C work
Share of posts explicitly mentioning contract or C2C arrangements.
Share of posts mentioning contract or C2C work
Show the data as a table
| Month | Contract share |
|---|---|
| Jul 2015 | 6.7% |
| Aug 2015 | 7.3% |
| Nov 2015 | 6.0% |
| May 2016 | 6.5% |
| Jun 2016 | 6.7% |
| Jul 2016 | 6.1% |
| Aug 2016 | 6.8% |
| Sep 2016 | 4.0% |
| Oct 2016 | 5.1% |
| Nov 2016 | 5.7% |
| Jan 2017 | 7.3% |
| Feb 2017 | 6.6% |
| Apr 2017 | 6.0% |
| May 2017 | 6.8% |
| Jul 2017 | 7.0% |
| Sep 2017 | 7.8% |
| Oct 2017 | 9.3% |
| Nov 2017 | 9.0% |
| Dec 2017 | 9.5% |
| Jan 2018 | 6.9% |
| Mar 2018 | 7.9% |
| Apr 2018 | 6.1% |
| May 2018 | 6.7% |
| Oct 2018 | 7.0% |
| Nov 2018 | 6.0% |
| Jan 2019 | 6.7% |
| May 2019 | 7.2% |
| Mar 2020 | 6.7% |
| May 2020 | 9.0% |
| Jun 2020 | 8.5% |
| Aug 2020 | 7.0% |
| Nov 2023 | 10.2% |
| Dec 2023 | 9.8% |
| May 2024 | 8.3% |
| Jul 2024 | 10.0% |
| Feb 2025 | 12.8% |
Contract mentions have trended upward: an average of 6.8% of posts in 2015–2019, 10.2% from late 2023 on, reaching 12.8% in Feb 2025.
As companies grow cautious about full-time headcount, contract and C2C roles are filling the gap.
Posts count as “contract” when they mention contract, C2C, corp-to-corp, freelance or consulting arrangements.
Salary transparency
Few posts state pay, but those that do give a useful reference point.
Based on the 273 posts (1.1% of 25,304) that stated a salary range we could parse. These skew toward transparent, often remote-friendly companies, and span 2015–2025, so treat them as historical. For current US pay by stack, see the rate calculator and W-2 vs 1099 vs C2C.
Where the jobs are, and who’s hiring
Top locations in hiring posts
Locations as written in post headers, excluding “Remote”. Many posts list remote as the primary location; these counts are posts naming a specific city or region.
Companies with the most posts
Post counts by company name across 36 monthly threads; some companies post in nearly every thread. Names normalised where possible.
Overall hiring volume
Posts per monthly thread.
Posts per sampled monthly thread
Show the data as a table
| Month | Posts |
|---|---|
| Jul 2015 | 835 |
| Aug 2015 | 786 |
| Nov 2015 | 703 |
| May 2016 | 666 |
| Jun 2016 | 772 |
| Jul 2016 | 686 |
| Aug 2016 | 736 |
| Sep 2016 | 642 |
| Oct 2016 | 784 |
| Nov 2016 | 838 |
| Jan 2017 | 614 |
| Feb 2017 | 940 |
| Apr 2017 | 711 |
| May 2017 | 829 |
| Jul 2017 | 756 |
| Sep 2017 | 779 |
| Oct 2017 | 884 |
| Nov 2017 | 904 |
| Dec 2017 | 776 |
| Jan 2018 | 663 |
| Mar 2018 | 866 |
| Apr 2018 | 840 |
| May 2018 | 972 |
| Oct 2018 | 894 |
| Nov 2018 | 860 |
| Jan 2019 | 766 |
| May 2019 | 818 |
| Mar 2020 | 480 |
| May 2020 | 500 |
| Jun 2020 | 506 |
| Aug 2020 | 642 |
| Nov 2023 | 362 |
| Dec 2023 | 315 |
| May 2024 | 398 |
| Jul 2024 | 381 |
| Feb 2025 | 400 |
We sampled 36 monthly threads between Jul 2015 and Feb 2025; there are none from 2021–2022 and gaps elsewhere, so columns are sampled months, not a continuous timeline. Volume peaked in 2017–2018 and has been lower and steadier since 2023.
Methodology
We collected 25,304 job-posting comments from 36 Hacker News monthly “Who’s Hiring” threads between Jul 2015 and Feb 2025. Each comment was parsed for company, location, remote status, contract or full-time, technology mentions and salary where stated.
Technology detection uses keyword matching against 24 technologies and common aliases (“golang” → Go, “k8s” → Kubernetes). A post can match several. Remote status comes from explicit “remote” mentions; contract status from “contract”, “C2C”, “corp-to-corp”, “freelance” or “consulting”. Salaries come from patterns like “$X–$Y” and “Xk–Yk”.
Limits: HN skews toward startups, YC companies and developer-centric roles; it does not represent enterprise hiring, government contracts or non-technical roles. The data stops in Feb 2025 and is not being updated, so read it as long-run direction. For current US demand, use the Talent Scarcity Index.