Applying to small companies?

A_SN

I've been looking for a new job lately, but there's a problem I noticed : only large companies are on job sites. All you find (at least in my domain) is jobs from companies ranging from large companies to multi-national behemoths known from all.

Not only does it mean there's not that many of them (and they don't even post that many jobs, there's only about 3 or 4 real positions out there that match even vaguely to my domain), but I'd rather not work for them anymore. It's a breeding ground for incompetent/foolish managers and a safeheaven for unskilled/ignorant engineers who stay there for years and put up with all types of crap from the multiple layers of questionable management above them because they probably couldn't find another such job if their life depended on it.

That's really not for me, I have much more of a Wild West mentality, I've even started my own home/Internet business (but it's too hard/uncertain to bring enough cash in with that, my marketing is weak), and I'd rather work for a company so small it couldn't afford to let the mediocre work with them (put together a few foolish managers and a few mediocre workers you know of and imagine them trying to create a new company and make it take off the ground...). But how do you find these small companies? I have no idea where to even start, I don't know any names, I don't know where to look, I don't know who does what..

But perhaps more importantly, how do they hire? They don't seem to go through agencies, and spamming agencies and large companies with my CV is all I know!! For the sake of relevance to my question, I'm a C/C++ software engineer with core skills related to signal processing, embedded programming and all around big number crunching, and currently working for software engineers 10+ years my seniors who've never heard of stderr and who think I'm a genius for knowing how to use regexes and GDB in command line...

Sleepy

It's how I found my first job anyway. Google the sort of software you'd be working on with a site:.ie tag and send on-spec applications to them. While still in college I googled 'software development site:.ie' and applied en-masse to the companies that came up regardless of size.

It was 2003 so at the tail end of the dot.com crash and no-one was hiring, I got more 'hi, your CV looks great but I'm afraid we've closed down' emails than I did rejections and eventually someone saw some potential in me and called me to interview.

www.linkedin.com is great for networking and I know a few techies who've been head-hunted through their profiles on it (mainly talented *nix guys who'd worked for high profile companies and had good levels of experience)

presotrader

Sleepy sounds about right, imho...
what I would suggest is putting up a strong LinkedIn profile, connecting it to a Twitter account and making a few tweets with your keywords peppered in them (what would someone who needs you search for?)
You might not land a job with the small company next door, but there is loads of contract work available, especially in these troubled times, and why complain if your employer is an outsourcing company for the Saudis?

just throwing my 2c in here, this is how I got to some of the most skilled people in my team (also IT, but different flavor). good luck!