How to find YC startup jobs: the 6 places they're actually posted

How YC companies actually post roles

Almost every YC company runs its hiring through an applicant-tracking system — Ashby and Greenhouse dominate, with Lever behind — and the careers page that system generates is the first place a role exists publicly. From there it may go to Work at a Startup, which many founders keep current and some forget; to Hacker News on the 1st, if a founder writes the paragraph; to Wellfound; and to LinkedIn last.

Across the 4,000+ YC companies we track, over 1,600 have at least one live role today. The gap between a role opening on a careers page and appearing on a board is where most of the advantage in a YC job search lives, because the batch-mates, the Hacker News readers and the Work at a Startup regulars are all looking at the same listings once they're listed.

Where to look, in order of how early the role shows up

1. 1. Best for seeing a role the day it's opened, before it's syndicated anywhere

   Company careers pages (Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever)

   Startups post to their own applicant-tracking system first — Greenhouse, Ashby or Lever for most of them — and boards pick the role up hours or days later. Watching the careers pages of the companies you care about is the earliest a posted role can be seen. Nobody does this at scale by hand, which is the gap the next entry fills.

   • The first public appearance of any role
   • No middleman, no applicant count, apply straight into the ATS
   • Works for any company, any stage

   • You have to know which companies to watch
   • No alerts on most ATS boards; you check or you miss it
   • Hundreds of tabs to cover a real shortlist

2. 2. Ours — judge it the same way

   The Anti Job Board

   Best for watching YC careers pages at scale so a role shows up the day it opens

   We track 4,000+ YC companies — over 1,600 of them hiring right now — alongside the rest of the funded-startup market, and re-verify every live role every 48 hours. Each company has a page with its open roles, headcount, backers and how to get hired there; the board is free, and members get drops on companies that just raised and are about to hire.

   • Roles appear from the company's ATS, before boards syndicate them
   • One place for YC and non-YC funded startups
   • Free ATS resume checker and cover letter tools

   • Smaller than Work at a Startup for YC-only breadth
   • The early-signal drops are paid
   • Salary shown only where the company publishes it

3. 3. Best for YC companies specifically — one profile, apply to many

   Work at a Startup (Y Combinator)

   Y Combinator's own board for its portfolio. You build one profile and apply to any number of YC companies; founders see it directly. If you only want YC startups, nothing else is as direct. If you want the funded startups that aren't YC — most of them — it doesn't cover them.

   • Every listing is a real YC company, no aggregation noise
   • One profile, many applications, founders reading them
   • Free

   • YC only — a large and specific slice of the market, not the market
   • Popular with exactly the candidates you're competing with
   • Listings are posted when a founder gets round to it, not when the need appears

4. 4. Best for engineers who'd rather read a founder's own words than a job description

   Hacker News “Who is hiring?”

   A plain-text thread posted on the first of every month where companies, often founders, describe what they need in a paragraph. No filters, no design, no applicant counts — just Ctrl-F and an email address. It is one of the highest-signal sources for early-stage engineering roles and one of the least convenient.

   • Written by the people hiring, frequently founders
   • Early-stage companies that haven't touched a job board yet
   • Free, no account, replies go to a human

   • Once a month; a role that appears on the 3rd waits four weeks for the next thread
   • No search beyond your browser's find, no alerts
   • Almost entirely engineering

5. 5. Best for building your own shortlist of YC companies by batch, sector and size

   The Y Combinator company directory

   YC's public list of every company it has funded, filterable by batch, industry, team size and whether they're marked as hiring. It isn't a job board — the 'hiring' flag links out to the company's own careers page — but it is the canonical list, and the right place to decide which forty companies you actually want to watch.

   • Every YC company, with batch and sector
   • The 'hiring' filter is maintained by the companies themselves
   • Free, no account

   • Not a job board; you still have to go to each careers page
   • The hiring flag lags reality in both directions
   • No alerts

6. 6. Best for finding the hiring manager once you know the company

   LinkedIn, filtered by YC

   Search LinkedIn for the company name once you've found it elsewhere; the point is the people, not the listing. Many YC founders post 'we're hiring' updates on LinkedIn before the role is formally opened — following the founders of your shortlist is a cheap early signal.

   • Founder posts often precede the listing
   • Find the person who'd interview you
   • Free

   • Applying through it puts you in the largest possible pool
   • Search is noisy; 'YC' isn't a reliable filter
   • Roles arrive here last

Applying to a YC company: what's different

• —The founder is often the first reader. Write the application to a person who built the thing, not to a recruiter screen — say what you'd do in the first month, specifically.
• —Batch matters less than stage. A W24 company with 8 people and a S21 company with 80 are different jobs; check headcount before you tailor anything.
• —Work at a Startup lets you apply to many companies with one profile. Don't — the ones you'd actually join deserve a sentence written for them.
• —If the role is on a careers page and nowhere else yet, say so in your note. 'I saw this before it was posted' is a credible signal of interest and it's true.