Targeting
Which companies and roles are worth a referral ask, and which never are.
Twenty-five emails a day is a hard budget, so the most important thing ZoNuLy decides is where not to spend them. Targeting is configuration, not code — every threshold below lives in config.yaml under targeting.
Who the roles are for#
- Freshers and early-career engineers — up to 3 years of experience (
max_yoe: 3). Senior roles are kept and flagged, never chased; a senior title caps a role's score at 35. - Remote-from-anywhere first. When a posting itself says “work from anywhere”, “remote — worldwide” or “no visa needed”, the role is marked
remote_anywhereand those companies rank first. - Abroad: US, UK and Germany (plus the Netherlands and EU), remote from India or on a visa. Visa feasibility is weighed, never assumed — Germany is easiest, then the UK, then the US.
- India: Bengaluru and Hyderabad only. No other Indian city is a target. A company is admitted to the India set only with a quote that places it in one of the two.
Which companies#
Underrated and recently funded#
The sweet spot is a startup that raised recently and is hiring, but that most people haven't heard of — so a fresher's ask isn't lost in a pile. Funding window: pre-seed to Series B, within 30 months, under $400M raised. India discovery prefers rounds in the last 24 months, pre-seed to Series C.
Never the famous ones#
A named list of hyped companies is excluded word by word (targeting.hyped), along with big tech and IT services firms. And the size rule excludes anything valued at $5B+ or that has raised $1B+. A borderline company ($400M–$1B raised, or valued $2–5B) stays only while it is actively hiring and pays in the top band.
Pay floors#
| Rule | Value | What happens below it |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | ≥ ₹30 LPA stated | — |
| Tier 2 | ₹20–30 LPA (ppo_tier2_lpa = 20 since 2026-10-26) | — |
| Reject | < ₹20 LPA stated | Kept in the database, never chased. |
| India company floor | targeting.india.min_lpa = 25 | Hidden as below_pay_bar — not deleted; back automatically when a posting states more. Unknown pay is kept. |
| Internship stipend | ≥ ₹40,000 / month | A hard bar — a ₹20 LPA+ company does not pay an intern less. |
A missing pay figure is not a rejection: a company with engineers and verified hiring becomes a prospect. And a low grade only changes the order — it never removes a company or a role.
People are targeted too#
- Referral rank
- The tech team first: senior / staff / lead / founding engineer 1 · software engineer 2 · founder / CTO 3 · engineering manager 4 · technical recruiter 5 · general HR 6 · anyone else 9.
- City lock
- For a Bengaluru company only people based in Bengaluru are kept; for Hyderabad, only Hyderabad — by the location on their own profile, never a school or a search snippet.
- No alumni targeting
- The people layer targets roles, not colleges.
- One of us per person
- Two candidates never write to the same person in the same month.
Where it shows up#
The ★ India page lists every Bengaluru and Hyderabad company that clears these rules (the hand-picked ones first). Companies → Worth chasing shows tier 1, tier 2 and prospects; Hire from anywhere the remote-anywhere set; Best bets narrows the targeted set to shortlists of Bengaluru 100, Hyderabad 50 and Remote 100 by chance of an offer (see The decision brain), with every role by its selection odds on its second tab.