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At first it was all through friends or connections. Then I found a job as the first engineer in a two person startup, posted on Craigslist (that was back in 2009). Eight years later that startup was sold for half a billion dollars. Today I would go directly to websites of companies I’m interested in, then find someone on LinkedIn who works there.

But - first you better make sure you’re someone they would want to hire! Casually mentioning some cool project you put on Github, relevant to what they are doing, helps a lot in my experience.

How reproducible is this?

There are only so many companies that can make it to that level of success, and only so many pigeons to fill those holes.

My phone's contacts list. Make friends with as many people at your current company as possible, and when they leave, make sure to keep in regular touch with them. I enforce self-discipline on this by putting regular touchpoints in my GTD app. I try to get coffee with or talk on the phone to former coworkers once every 4-6 months, depending on how well I know them.