The Search Is On

In this brief update, we will introduce our new, site-wide search capabilities, powered by Algolia, and talk about why this feature is important for us, going forward.

Hopefully, by now, you've noticed our new search feature; if not, now's a great time to try it out!

If you've used this feature in the past you might remember that it was connected to job searching, exclusively. Now, however, it will perform a site-wide ("universal") search for your term across all of our content: jobs, articles, issues, and company profiles.

Plugging this in was fairly straight-forward thanks to a combination of features. Firstly, we are able to use Algolia's own JavaScript client library - algoliasearch - directly inside our ClojureScript application thanks to shadow-cljs seamless integration with npm (gone are the days of wrestling with externs due to inference). Then, as we already have several Algolia indices set up for our various content searches, all we had to do is use a multi-index search to collect results from each one.

There is some room for improvement. For example, Algolia provides mechanisms for auto-complete which we believe would significantly improve the experience. This would mean adding functionality outside of the ClojureScript application, which we currently already do, but it takes care and consideration. Another useful improvement would be a saved list of recent searches. In fact, we have an open source issue for this feature, so if you think you could help us we would pay you for your effort.

Why do we need site-wide search, anyway? Because WorksHub is committed to providing more than just high-quality jobs. We are doubling-down on content that you tell us you want more of:

• Relevant, high-quality articles about technical aspects that interest you: languages, frameworks, how-tos, etc.
• Fresh open source issues on projects that matter, from maintainers you trust.
• Profiles of companies that work with exciting technologies, whilst also caring about employee wellness and generous benefits.

Please watch out for more updates in the coming months as we add two Community Managers to the team, dedicated to helping achieve this.

In the meantime, we hope you continue to find WorksHub useful 🎉 As ever, we will continue iterating and improving. In case you have any feedback, please let me know.