The tech industry is still booming, with major acquisitions happening almost every month at impressive valuations. As these companies ride high and others jockey to take their place, the competition for tech talent is reaching all-time highs. We figured we could add to that frenzy by ranking some of the hottest people on — or rather not — on the market.
That means Betabeat is bringing back our Most Poachable Players in Tech series, a selection of the best talent in tech that you should be looking to hire away to your company.
And unlike our previous editions, we’ve decided to open up the competition to the entire country, not just Silicon Alley. Since most jobs are going remote anyway, we figured the era of arbitrary geographic boundaries is officially over.
In years past, our picks have ended up being acqui-hired, promoted and, of course, stolen away from their previous employers for cushy new digs. We like to think we have a bit of a golden touch in that regard.
After publishing our last list, over half a dozen of our poachable players were in new, elevated positions. Lily Quateman was hired away from Stylesight to be the Product Manager for New YorkMagazine, and Andrew Chang was almost immediately hired up as the COO of Condition One. He’s since moved on to Google.
Our 2014 edition of the Most Poachable Players in Tech was selected via reader tips, word of mouth, and investigative work by our staff here at Betabeat. As we put it in our first Most Poachable Players in Tech call for entries:
“Who’s really good, but working at a really bad company? Who are the all-stars who could kick ass anywhere, any time, at any gig, and even be fun to be around? Who would we want to hire, if we had an infinite pot of gold? How likely is it they’ll leave? Are they bored, underpaid, or underutilized? And who is in line, or should be, to score a raise?”
Thanks to our loyal readers and hardworking staff we have come up with our strongest list yet, which includes hotshot growth hackers, editors and biz dev execs from companies like LinkedIn, Upworthy, and the Huffington Post. They are the cream of the crop, the ones who didn’t need our tips for how to get hired, leading some of today’s biggest tech companies and destined to become stars at new ones.
We had to eliminate many well-deserved nominations from the list—some we’re sure you’ll notice—so feel free to let us know who you feel we left out in the comments. To discover who the 2014 Poachables are click through the slideshow. Who knows, maybe you’ll find your next CTO or Editor in Chief, instead of having to resort to a crowdsourced contest for your next big hire.
Happy Poaching!