• Technical.ly is replacing its long-running jobs board with a new Careers Resource Hub, and pausing two jobs-related event series.
• The move reflects a very different tech hiring landscape from the “cheap-money” 2010s. It also marks a shift in our model. More of our reporting is now financially underwritten by place-based economic development partners, keeping our journalism free while supporting more accessible, efficient local innovation ecosystems.
• For those interested in our longtime NET/WORK career fair or the still-popular Developers Conference, we’ve opened a call for those interested in keeping the torch alive.
Sixteen years ago, our jobs board launched in the shadow of a recession.
Technical.ly published its first jobs board in fall 2009, as the Great Recession forced a generation of technologists into new roles and new cities. For nearly two decades, it was a local community–driven tool to match developers, data pros and product thinkers with companies in more than a dozen states. At its peak in 2019, the jobs board generated almost $150,000 that supported our freely available reporting, and, according to surveys, led to hundreds of job placements.
Employers aren’t recruiting the same way they did in the 2010s, and jobseekers navigate ecosystems differently too.
For years, the model worked. Low-interest capital fueled a startup-heavy, talent-hungry tech economy that prized headcount growth and constant recruiting. Matching talent and employers was central to our mission of making tech ecosystems more accessible.
That cycle is over.
Higher interest rates, AI-marketed efficiency and smaller, tighter teams have redefined tech hiring. Employers aren’t recruiting the same way they did in the 2010s, and jobseekers navigate ecosystems differently too.
So we’re revamping our jobs board for the first time since our founding, transforming it into a Careers Resource Hub (find it at technical.ly/careers) to guide our community with curated resources and direct links to our partners’ own job listings.
If you’re interested in sharing your org’s jobs listing with our audience, we invite you to join our community Slack and post in our #jobs channel.
The underwriting model for reporting on local economic change
A half-decade ago, coming out of the pandemic, we set out to protect our most important function: freely accessible reporting on local economic change.
Our own research backs up what many practitioners feel: Good storytelling grows ecosystems. It’s one of the few interventions that consistently increases connections inside ecosystems, which is foundational to both entrepreneurship and economic mobility.
Today, in addition to longtime advertisers and trusted service provider partners, our journalism is financially underwritten by place-based economic development organizations and funders of workforce and entrepreneurship programs. Our reporting remains fully independent. These supporters invest so local innovators, jobseekers and founders have better information about the communities they’re trying to grow.
This is what sustainability looks like in a new cycle.
With the jobs board’s rethinking, we’re also opening a call for proposals from others who want to lead two jobs-related event series:
- NET/WORK, our longstanding tech jobs fair last held in 2024. We will not bring it back in 2026 — but someone else could!
- For the first time in more than a decade, we do not plan to host our Developers Conference. Are you the new organizer?
- To express interest in collaborating on or leading either or both of these, fill out this form.
Both events were built at a time when Technical.ly was a primary events organizer in its markets. Over the years, we hosted versions of each in Washington DC, Baltimore, Delaware, Philadelphia and Brooklyn.
Today, strong, dedicated, local organizers already exist, and our role has shifted. We’re a national platform for local ecosystem storytelling, helping others convene while we focus on the work we do better than anyone else: telling the stories that knit an innovation economy together.
We’re not ruling out partnerships. We’re keeping an open call for ideas to revive or reimagine either event with aligned collaborators.
What’s next: More partnerships, more amplification
We’ll still amplify local job openings and hiring orgs, and inform our readers on workforce and company culture trends to help them grow professionally. We’ll continue to be a media partner for regional tech, startup and hiring events. And we’ll keep building a model that sustains high-quality reporting for communities that rarely get it.
This is our first iteration of the Careers Resource Hub, so please send feedback and suggestions to product@technical.ly.
Our goal is for Technical.ly to be an amplifying tool for local ecosystems. This move fits that strategy.
The macroeconomy will shift again. When it does, tech hiring will look different, and so will the work of telling these stories. Our role is to stay useful as the cycle turns.
