Find Companies

Contract

• Input: profile/ experience, direction, location and work constraints; existing research/companies/ references.
• Scope: Assess employer fit independently of vacancy availability; do not apply or contact employers.
• Output: Shortlist first; save selected employers to research/companies/.md with fit, sources/check dates and unknowns.

Establish fit criteria

• Read the user's selected profile and career direction. Reuse explicit current preferences; ask only missing information that materially changes the search. Do not infer preferred roles or industries solely from past employers.
• Use as fit evidence only facts the records mark confirmed or that two sources agree on; name any single-source or conflicting claim as unconfirmed instead of relying on it.
• Establish desired work and growth, demonstrated strengths, location/commute, remote or hybrid needs, employment geography, working languages and relevant eligibility constraints. Clarify industry, company size, employment model, compensation or values only when they affect selection.
• Separate non-negotiable constraints from preferences and exploratory interests. Confirm priorities before ranking; keep private goals and supported experience distinct.
• Use generic professional search criteria. Do not upload private profiles, internal decisions, client-sensitive details or personal identifiers to external search services. A private profile is input, not permission to disclose it.

Research employers

• Research a bounded set of companies using current official company, engineering, office and careers pages. Use clearly attributed external sources for perspectives not established by official material. Verify each candidate's identity and relevant locations; record source links and checked dates.
• Assess evidence for actual work, technical environment and opportunities at the relevant team/location rather than extrapolating from one posting to the whole company. Explain transferable fit without inventing qualifications or access to a team.
• Verify practical constraints: a local office does not prove a local engineering team; remote does not mean employment from any country; a multinational does not imply an English-speaking local role. Mark eligibility, languages, compensation and working arrangements unknown when unverified. Do not guess legal eligibility from nationality or location alone.
• Separate employer fit from vacancy availability. A strong prospect can have no relevant opening; report an opening as current only after checking the original employer posting. Do not treat aggregator listings, stale links or general talent pools as verified vacancies.
• Treat culture, progression and work-life claims as attributed signals, not established facts. Employer marketing and anonymous reviews have different limitations; do not promise a great culture or hiring success.
• If browsing is unavailable, offer a research method or provisional candidates grounded in supplied evidence and state that current verification was not possible. Never fabricate employers, facts or source links.

Compare and hand off

• Return a concise shortlist with company, fit rationale, practical location/remote constraints, evidence, concerns/unknowns and vacancy status. Explain ranking against the user's priorities; avoid unsupported numeric fit scores. Exclude known hard-constraint conflicts or label clearly if retained for exploration.
• Distinguish observed facts from inferred fit. State important trade-offs and what would change the recommendation. Prefer a few substantiated candidates over an unfiltered directory.
• Save each selected employer with the company record header. Save to research/companies/<company>.md inside the workspace root (the folder holding the index README.md, usually career/, not the current directory) without asking, and link each record under Records; ask only when the index maps companies elsewhere or there is no workspace. Update existing records instead of duplicating them. Record criteria, source dates and unresolved checks; confirm actual saves. When the careers page links to an ATS board (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable, Recruitee, SmartRecruiters, Personio), record it as Jobs board: <ats>:<slug> (the slug is the path or subdomain in the board URL) so find-jobs can query it.
• Offer focused vacancy research with find-jobs when available, but remain independently useful without it. Do not subscribe to alerts, apply, upload documents, follow companies or contact anyone without separate authorization.

When the workspace has a root README.md index, add a link to each new record under Records.

Done when

• Candidates have traceable evidence and explicit links to profile/goals and practical constraints.
• Employer suitability, inferred fit, unresolved conditions and current vacancy status are clearly separated.
• Sources, checked dates and research limits are stated; the shortlist is reviewable and no outreach occurred.