11–20 of 94 posts
pretend to be confident
remember companies hire techies to solve problems. be a solution
and long term, build something. sometimes its easier to just go make money on the internet than to make it thru these overbaked interview processes
I was a high performer, but have no real mentors. I have a couple friends who can provide referrals, but their companies all have hiring freezes right now - as do many tech companies from the looks of things. It's every week I see another post on HN about a company doing layoffs, and I expect more to come.
Even if I could find the motivation to grind leetcode (goodness, I hate interviewing in tech), the economy and companies are currently in a very touchy and cautious state it would seem. I'm in a HCOL area and rents since COVID are at an all-time high, and to make matters worse I need to find a new apartment in the next few months (and no job = no approval, so that's fun..)
I know I will probably be best served by finding a less paying job with a lot less stress, but that isn't exactly an easy thing to narrow down.
I'm not exactly sure what I hoped to achieve by sharing this, but I suppose it's just nice to have some camaraderie in these times and know there are others struggling too.
Honestly, the worst part of my 6 months of job seeking after I resigned from my last job was that the interview loop is just soul crushing.
The first week after my termination, I was just lost in space and time, freaking out. Over the next two weeks, I applied to every possible software engineering job, sending at least a thousand emails. I spent all days long on the phone, switching ears when one became sore from holding the phone.
It took me only two weeks to find a new gig. In the end, I allowed myself a week to decompress and then joined the new company, four weeks after losing my previous position. The stress was intense. My bank account hovered between $3k-$6k, and the stakes were high. If I didn't secure a job soon, my family and I faced the real possibility of going under the bridge.
My advice to those in similar situations is this: don't let despair dominate your thoughts. Instead, think about your family, or imagine you have a child, or will have in the future, and now it's your time to prove you can do it.
I believe this mindset is crucial. IMO, intensive preparation for leetcode is less important in desperate times. It's better to continuously apply to jobs. Leetcode is more suitable when you're already employed and can afford to spend time on it, ideally over a span of six months to a year, to thoroughly tackle those 300 popular questions.
build a website for yourself pretend to be confident remember companies hire techies to solve problems. be a solution and long term, build something. sometimes its easier to just go make money on the internet than to make it thru these overbaked interview processes
If you're grinding leetcode and are working on side projects you're already in the top 10% of applications for me as a hiring manager. I'm not in the Bay Area so maybe competition's a bit more intense over there. Besides being on the grind, what I like to see is that you've been working on / experimenting with tech outside the stack you were using for those 10 years at your previous job. Especially stuff that's hot r…
People who perform really well at their job is who I want to hire. Solid skills, team player, proactive attitude. I have no proxy for that except digging down on recent projects and personality while talking to you. Do whatever you want in your downtime. Show those 3 things and you're golden even if your skills are a little misaligned or if you've been out of the game for a bit.
(Might apply better to smaller businesses where you're interviewing with the owner)
Right now you’re paralysed.
Whenever you need just one of something (job, relationship etc), it's going to look hopeless, right up to the moment that you get that one thing, and then you'd wonder why you ever worried. You have the experience. There is demand for your experience. You're going to be fine. Just keep applying. Try not to waste your energy on worrying, and redirect it towards sending out applications etc. Easier said than done, I kn…
that's a good point...i have this fear because i've had terrible experience interviewing. i've been closer to the edge than this before... one reason I stayed at my previous place for 10 years was because i just couldn't interview well...i know better about modern interview practices, which is why i practice so much ( 2-3 hours per day). it feels so far away tho.
In 2014, I relocated to the Bay Area with my spouse and one-year-old child, armed only with $9k USD and 2 bags of belongings for the whole family. I had secured a job, but unexpectedly, the company ran out of funds within six months. The first week after my termination, I was just lost in space and time, freaking out. Over the next two weeks, I applied to every possible software engineering job, sending at least a th…