Rethinking Triplebyte

I have Github repo. I have my own portfolio. I have wrote flutter app deployed to play store to demonstrate I can function individually and still can write production ready code. And All the above just on my own spare time.

But every company I have applied told me my skill set doesn't aligned with them. I get response from them that there is no traction on my resume. While some friends get interview after interview and others don't.

I am not saying that I am the best but we need different process where entry is given and now show me what you can do.

Then I stopped bothering when it's super obvious that isn't working. Particularly, on Linkedin you could see the number of people that has applied (maybe a paid feature, i don't remember now). And for any entry level software engineering and data science position it's always in the 100s.

The one recruiter that I had contact with did more work than all of these. I've since switched jobs (to one of the FAANG) and that was through recruiter too.

The biggest problem with engineering job searches is that they're a huge time sink. I'm a senior engineer with Google on my resume, so I don't have much trouble getting in the door or passing interviews, but the process is such a slog. If I were to take PTO for a week and cram my schedule full of job search, I could probably get 3-4 interview processes done per week. That's not a lot, considering that it's good to line up offers and that many people have limited PTO. Even if your PTO is "unlimited", it looks suspicious to be taking random days off for on-sites.

What this means is that I try to keep doing my job and schedule phone screens and recruiter calls in the gaps when I know I won't get meetings. I try not to have to block time on my work calendar for these in case someone wonders "why does Troy suddenly have so many random meetings all of the sudden". The scheduling process with companies is a pain, they ask for 2-3 time windows for the phone screen, then often take a couple days to pick one. So I have huge time blocks reserved for them that I can't give to other companies I am interviewing with. It's stressful to try to slot all this in. Add to that the fact that recruiters want to do everything over the phone (which is very unnatural for me), so I have to also schedule little interruptions for 15 minute "chats" to "check in" and prepare me for the next round. I appreciate these things but at the same time, I'd appreciate fewer of them.

When it comes to the actual interviews, some companies seem to be fine with one phone screen, some need 2-3. Sometimes they are an hour, sometimes 45 minutes. Some companies see that I work at Google and deduce that I might be competent enough to skip the phone screens entirely. I appreciate that.

It's the same with on-sites. Some are a half day, and some are more of a full day. It's not a big difference in practice because I couldn't really take a half day off from 11-3. Many companies have a "no interview day" which is great for their employees but hard to work around, particularly if it falls on "non-suspicious" PTO days like Monday or Friday. Sometimes I wish we could just do several phone screens instead to make scheduling easier.

I'm not sure how to solve this, but it's the biggest pain point by far and if someone could solve it I would absolutely use their platform. I want fewer phone calls, fewer hours of interviewing, and a clear understanding of the time commitment ahead of time.

I also wish companies would be up front about WLB so I don't waste time interviewing, only to learn they work "maybe 50-55 hours a week". That's not a "little more" than 40 guys, that's more than 6 full work days every week. You can't just ask at the outset because some people perceive that as a red flag.