I think it different in each city. I live in New York, and this city is in dying need for more engineering talents to feed its fast-growing startup scene.

Being a hacker, the last thing you wanna hear is some finance dude pitching you an idea they had when they were crunching numbers on an excel spreadsheet at their 2nd year analyst job.

You have be product-savvy, you have to have respect for the hacker community/culture, and you have to be super persistent.