Expertise badges and interest tags

[joemasilotti]

I've been running more and more custom queries for businesses looking for developers with specific skillsets. Hotwire, Jumpstart Pro, React, Docker, product management, design, are all examples.

Right now my workflow is to use the text search on /developers to see if they mention it in their profile. This works fairly well, but could be improved.

One idea is to have developers manually tag their areas of expertise or things they are interested in. This has the following benefits:

1. Makes searching for explicit - some folks mention "I don't like React" but show up in a "react" search query.
2. Gives developers another opportunity to share their unique story and background.
3. Could liven up the profile page with colorful badges.
4. Could provide interesting analytics data on what folks on the site like to do.

UX-wise, I'm leaning towards a curated list of tags where you can only select a few. This forces developers to pick the ones they feel are most relevant to their skills. Instead of checking every box because why not.

Two outstanding questions I'm working through:

1. Expertise badges, interest tags, or both?
2. What is the initial list of badges/tags?

[joemasilotti]

Ideas for badges/tags

• Hotwire
• React
• Stimulus
• Heroku
• Jumpstart Pro
• Bullet Train
• SQL
• Turbo Native
• iOS
• Android
• Design
• Product management
• UI/UX

Any other ones you'd like to add to your profile?