Tech Hiring: Stop Trying to "Revolutionize" and Just Say What You Do

Tech hiring has a branding problem. Not the cool kind of branding problem where your logo accidentally looks like something inappropriate when flipped upside down. No, this is an identity crisis—a slogan-infested, evangelism-fueled attempt to make "hiring a backend engineer" sound like the second coming of the industrial revolution.  

Somewhere along the way, talent acquisition in tech got hijacked by marketing jargon, investment pitches, and overcaffeinated CEOs. Now, instead of simply hiring people to build software, companies are "redefining the future," "disrupting paradigms," and "ushering in a new era of digital transformation."  

Look, I get it. Tech moves fast. You want the best engineers. But do we really need to promise them the chance to "change the world" when the job is mostly fixing bugs and dealing with Jira tickets?  

Let’s talk about what needs to change in tech hiring—starting with how we talk about it.  

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The Talent Acquisition–HR–Workplace Experience Love Triangle  

The most critical relationship in a tech company isn’t between the CEO and their espresso machine—it’s Talent Acquisition (TA), HR, and Workplace Experience.  

- Talent Acquisition is out there in the wild, trying to lure candidates in.  

- HR is the guardian of cultural continuity but sometimes gets a little too... poetic with branding.  

- Workplace Experience is responsible for making sure employees don’t hate their lives after they join.  

When these three align, magic happens. When they don’t? Well, you get job descriptions that sound like rejected TED Talk pitches.  

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How Tech Job Descriptions Became a Corporate Buzzword Dumpster  

A job description should tell candidates what they’re signing up for—not sound like a startup founder trying to impress VCs.  

For example, instead of:  

🚫 "We are revolutionizing the digital landscape through innovative SaaS solutions that redefine enterprise synergy."  

Try:  

✅ "We build software that works."  

That might sound simple, but anyone who has spent years in a technology company—from programmers to senior engineers, architects, product managers, directors of technology, and beyond—knows that building software that actually works is an extraordinary feat.  

Think about it:  

- It takes years of deep computer science knowledge to architect something scalable, resilient, and bug-free (or at least bug-light).  

- It takes a battalion of project managers and product managers ensuring that things get built on time, on budget, and vaguely resembling the original plan.  

- It takes marketing and sales teams who understand the product well enough to sell it—not just as a PowerPoint fantasy, but as a real solution that customers actually pay for.  

That’s why the most respected engineers and tech leaders don’t need grand slogans. When they see a company say, "We build software that works, and in spite of occasional frustrations, our customers like it enough to pay for it," they instantly recognize the greatness of that achievement.  

Because in the world of tech, most software never works as expected, never scales properly, never meets deadlines, and often never even ships. If your company has built something functional, sold it, and kept customers happy—that’s already a massive success.  

Take a bow.  

From the entry-level engineers grinding through lines of code to the senior architects designing scalable systems, from the executive leadership making the tough calls to the HR teams shaping the culture—take a moment to recognize your brilliance.  

Because when you truly recognize your own achievement, you no longer feel the need to seek validation through empty slogans. You don’t have to overcompensate with evangelistic job descriptions that try to "revolutionize" an industry. Instead, your communication becomes different—more grounded, more authentic, more powerful.  

And that’s the real secret to attracting the best talent. Not by shouting into the void about "transforming the future"—but by owning the success you’ve already built.

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Tech Companies: Stop Overselling the Dream, Start Selling the Job  

Here’s the thing: Great engineers aren’t signing up because of your "visionary mission statement." They’re signing up because:  

- Your stack doesn’t suck.  

- Your team isn’t a mess.  

- You pay them enough to deal with the occasional chaos.  

So, instead of posting a job that sounds like a manifesto for a utopian society, just tell them:  

- What the job is.  

- What they’ll actually do.  

- Why people like working there.  

Keep it real. Keep it human. Otherwise, you’ll attract people who love buzzwords more than they love actual work—you don’t want that.  

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The Future of Tech Hiring: Less Fluff, More Substance  

Talent Acquisition teams should push HR to rethink branding—not to erase company culture, but to express it authentically.  

Over the next few posts, we’ll break down:  

- How job descriptions should evolve for different tech roles (from entry-level to VP).  

- How to write employer branding that actually attracts talent (and doesn’t sound like a sci-fi screenplay).  

- Why being funny and real beats being “innovative” and vague in job postings.  

It’s time to make tech hiring clearer, smarter, and a whole lot less cringe—no one is applying to “redefine digital ecosystems.” They just want to write good code and go home.  

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Final Thought:  

If you really must say you're "disrupting the industry,", “transforming how the world…”, at least disrupt and transform it with a working product first.