Write a job description

Most job posts are a list of adjectives. This prompt forces the model to describe the actual work instead.

When to use it

A post aimed at people who are not looking, and will stop reading at the first cliché.

What it prevents

The adjective pile. Without an instruction to describe a real first-month task, the model produces a list of qualities nobody can disagree with and nobody believes.

The prompt

Write a job description for a senior backend engineer.

### Audience
Experienced engineers who are not looking, and will only read past the first line if it says something true.

### Context
The team is four people maintaining a payments service that processes real money. The hard part of the job is the on-call, and pretending otherwise wastes everyone's time.

### Requirements
- Length: About 300 words.
- Output format: Markdown with three sections — the work, what we need, what we offer.
- Describe a real task the person will do in their first month.
- State the on-call expectation plainly.
- Avoid: rockstar, ninja, fast-paced, and any list of adjectives about culture.

### Example of the wanted output
## The work
In your first month you will own the retry logic for failed settlements...

Why each part is there

Every section of that prompt exists because a specific failure happens without it. These are the checks it passes, and what each one is protecting you from:

• States a concrete task — why this matters
• Avoids vague language — why this matters
• Specifies an output format — why this matters
• Gives context or audience — why this matters
• Avoids dangling references — why this matters
• Includes an example — why this matters
• Separates data from instructions — why this matters
• Avoids over-aggressive phrasing — why this matters
• Defines what a good answer looks like — why this matters

How to adapt this one

Swap the role and, more importantly, the real first-month task — that one concrete sentence is what separates your post from every other. Rebuild the banned list to match your field’s clichés: for design, “pixel-perfect”; for sales, “hunter mentality”. Keep “state the on-call expectation plainly”, or its equivalent hard truth, because naming the unglamorous part is what makes the rest believable.

The mistake this prompt avoids

Describing the ideal candidate instead of the actual work. A pile of adjectives — “passionate, driven, collaborative” — describes nobody and repels the experienced people who have learned to read past it. Describe a task they will own, a problem they will hit, a decision they will make. Specifics attract; adjectives filter for the desperate.

A variation

Hiring junior or early-career? Cut the years-of-experience framing and describe what they will learn in the first six months instead of what they must already know. The strongest people at that level are choosing where to grow, and a post that shows the growth path outcompetes one listing requirements they will nervously self-assess against.

Check your version

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