How do I find the next company I want to work at?

Have you identified what domain you want to work in? Narrowing down between HealthTech, FinTech, Crypto, SaaS, eCommerce, etc. might be very valuable in identifying the right opportunities as well as ensuring career longevity.

Another dimension to consider is the field you want to cultivate expertise in: BE, FE, Mobile, Data, Fullstack, AI/ML, etc.

Yet another dimension is narrowing down the tech stack, which you touched upon in your question.

While jumping across domains, fields, and tech stacks gives you exposure and increases your ability to learn quickly, it also keeps you from cultivating deep expertise in any one area. It can be detrimental to not identify your niche, esp. as you get more senior, and it can also lead to imposter syndrome because you can end up feeling like you "don't know anything well". People who have deeper expertise in something are also generally perceived as more valuable by their employers, esp. if they are also senior.

Once you have these dimensions identified for yourself, narrowing down companies becomes easier. Look at the various conferences to see who's speaking or tabling or sponsoring. Find out what companies are getting funding. These are good starting points.

Re. job search, as other responders said, you still need to caste a wide net in this job market. But identifying your dimensions of interest and taking stock of what you want to build on in your existing expertise will give you further direction. It can also come in handy when you get multiple offers and need to identify the most compelling ones.

Happy to answer any questions you might have.

One thing to remember is that both company websites and all their recruiting surfaces are the idealized version of the company, not the real version of the company. Keep that in mind as you browse through job descriptions and company career pages -- they're clearly trying to sell you something.

The best source of discovery is to talk to people. Ideal criteria:

• Senior ICs. They'll be more reliable than managers.
• Have been there for 1+ year, so they're past the honeymoon phase
• You have a history with them before the company, so you have a higher chance of getting a "real" answer.

Regarding what questions to ask yourself, the big one I'd think about is the company stage. As an engineer, the types of problems you'll tackle in a Seed Stage vs Series A vs Public company will be quite different.

Some good answers here as well: How to choose the next company to go to, if you get laid off?

We need to convert this into a course, but I recommend watching this: [Masterclass] How To Choose A Good Company And Team As A Software Engineer

In particular, figure out your priorities, stack rank them, and work backwards from there.

Zooming out though, this economy is one where it's less about the engineers choosing a job and more about the job choosing the engineer. It's really hard to get into the best companies now, so most engineers are just applying to everything they can, seeing what falls into their lap, and making a choice from there. I recommend going through my job searching course to figure out how to facilitate all this: [Course] Ace Your Tech Interview And Get A Job As A Software Engineer

This problem will also sort of solve itself as you go through interviews. You'll get the vibe from interviewing with folks (especially in the behavioral rounds as you can reverse interview them), and understand which companies you resonate more with over time.