Yes, this is the worst economy of my lifetime. I know plenty of great people who are looking for work, and I remind them not to lose hope. We’re clawing our way out of the recession one job at a time, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I do have some friends who are hiring — mostly for developer jobs, but as these companies grow, they’ll hire for other positions, too. I will try to keep this list up-to-date. But as heisenthought points out, everybody wants JavaScript developers, it seems.
SayNow (Palo Alto, CA) — JavaScript and Ruby developers who like to rapidly prototype social applications
Gowalla (Austin, TX) — Ruby, JavaScript, and mobile developers
Foursquare (New York) — Excellent developers
Hypertable (Burlingame, CA) — Technically-minded salesperson
Quora (Palo Alto, CA) — Python developers
Asana (Palo Alto, CA) — designers, developers, and a businessperson
Plancast (San Francisco) — JavaScript and PHP developers
Payvment (San Francisco) — JavaScript and PHP developers
Apture (San Francisco) — JavaScript and Python developers
AppDiscover (Redwood City, CA) — iPhone and Android developers
Campfire Labs (San Francisco) — Javascript, Ruby, and Python developers, and systems engineers
Dolores Labs (San Francisco) — your guess is as good as mine
Sitepen (anywhere) — JavaScript developers, visual designers, and project managers
EcoFactor (San Carlos, CA) — Java developers
Manymoon (San Francisco) — Java and JavaScript developers
InTwig (Redwood City, CA) — JavaScript and PHP developers
eFitPlan (San Francisco) — Java/PHP/Ruby developers who want to fuse the latest exercise science with computer science to provide personalized workouts and fitness coaching to the masses, for free
Breakthrough (Palo Alto, CA) — Ruby engineers, a Product Manager, and a Director of Sales, ideally with health care experience but not required
Palaran (Palo Alto, CA) — Search scientists, Systems engineers, Frontend hackers
Reputation Defender (Redwood City, CA) — JavaScript and PHP developers
Truveo (San Francisco) — web developers and sysadmins
iSocket (San Mateo, CA) — JavaScript and PHP developers
Ribbit (Mountain View, CA) — C++, Java, Flash, and mobile developers
Ustream (Mountain View, CA) — C++, PHP, Flash, JavaScript, and mobile developers
Blekko (Redwood Shores, CA) — Perl, C++, and JavaScript developers
Wolfram Alpha (San Mateo, CA) — everything
Lithium (Emeryville, CA) — a little bit of everything
Gaia (San Jose, CA) — PHP and Flash developers
Watercooler (Mountain View, CA) — JavaScript, PHP, and Flash developers
Playdom (Mountain View, CA) — JavaScript, PHP, and Flash developers
Sociable (San Francisco, CA) — Product manager
Liftium (San Francisco) — JavaScript and Ruby developers who want to on-ramp new publishers using Liftium’s ad technology
Chai Labs (Mountain View, CA) — Rock stars
Snooth (New York) — JavaScript and PHP developers, and salespeople
Yelp (San Francisco) — JavaScript, Python, and iPhone developers
Etsy (Brooklyn, NY) — The question is, what AREN’T they hiring right now?
Hunch (New York) — JavaScript and Python developers, and an analytically-driven blogger
Betfair (San Francisco) — a little bit of everything
Glitch (Canada) — ???
Trackville (Mountain View, CA) — ???
Kerosene and a Match (Orange County, CA) — ???
knx.to (Menlo Park, CA) — business development person
speedi.ly (Palo Alto, CA) — ???
AdCru (San Mateo, CA) — ???
Ellerdale (Menlo Park, CA) — ???
PandaWhale (Palo Alto, CA) — iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and CSS/JavaScript-on-mobile-Webkit developers
Career Resources (Redwood City, CA) — looking for temps