What a Bad Engineering Job Description Looks Like

Your job description is your first interview — and most engineering JDs fail it immediately. Before a single candidate applies, you've already told them what working with you is like. Bad JDs don't just fail to attract talent. They actively signal the wrong things to the right people. Let's walk through what that looks like line by line.

Here's a real JD, cleaned up slightly to protect the guilty. Line one: five years of experience required — in a framework that's three years old. Line three: "rockstar engineer." That phrase signals you'll be alone, overloaded, and called a hero for it. Line five: "fast-paced startup environment." Translation: we don't have process and we're proud of it. Line seven: "must have a passion for technology." Passion isn't a job requirement. Line nine: "bonus: ML experience." Tacked on because someone read a trend piece. None of these lines describe the actual role. All of them signal risk to a senior engineer reading carefully.

Here's what changes when you rewrite the same role. The bad JD lists tech and signals chaos. The good JD describes the actual problem to solve, who you'll work with, and what success looks like in six months. One tells you what to know. The other tells you what to do. Senior engineers choose based on that distinction every time.