Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

> Hard Truth #2: It’s gonna take longer than you think

I was laid off once and had a new (higher paid) job before gardening-leave was over (two weeks) - OP doesn't say what offers they turned down..

1. Getting laid of is usually pretty liberating. Everyone knows the company isn't generally doing well, the air is hot with friction, and you probably know you're working yourself into a corner. Getting laid off has happened to me two and a half times now. The first time was in the 2007 crash, and the company was hemorrhaging money and everyone knew it but didn't want to admit it. The second time I happened to quit the same week the CEO was planning layoffs. He teared up thanking me for saving him from having to fire anyone. The third time was one of the worst work experiences I have ever been in, but I didn't realize it until it was over. I called my wife and was excited, not downtrodden. Every day for the next two weeks was full of lunches and drinks and I had to insist on being allowed to pay every time.

2. This is just good advice. The only things you should spend money on when interviewing are dry cleaning and resume paper. I think my longest stretch was about 9 months, and my wife was forced to go back to work during that time despite just having a baby.

3. Yes and no. Some people don't interview well. Based on the author's other writing, he seems like the kind of person who might not interview well. In my career I think I have a close to 30% offer rate on interviews (but I'm very picky about applying for jobs). Yours may be higher, or much lower.

4. This is just always good advice. Set a bar for yourself, be willing to negotiate, and realize that work environment is about 500x as important as what technology you are using. I once got a job at a perl (yay!) shop where I worked for literally 1 day because the environment was so toxic.

5. Most offers for help come from people who don't know how to help. The author's approach here of direct asks is fantastic. Most will flake on you, but those that follow through are true friends.

6. Yeah this was a bad move. Don't talk about your exes on a first date, and definitely don't bring up the ones that swiped whichever direction the bad one is before your first date.

7. If the economy keeps going the way it is headed, ditch this advice in its entirety. Take that job, grasp it tightly to your breast, and don't let go no matter what happens. The job market in a down economy could be romantically described as falling somewhere between a chop shop and a meat market, and the hiring incentives for managers can be pretty twisted.

8. This has taught me to have a healthy relationship with my career. That post-layoff feeling should be bottled and sold next to the stickers that neophyte programmers put on their macbooks. There's nothing more seductive than confidence, and the clarity that a layoff brings is the best test of confidence there is (up there with a cold sales call, a VC interrogation, etc). If you can internalize a realistic understanding of your own skill level and marketability, you'll be an attractive hire, teammate, leader, etc.

It's sad to see people again and again sell their life.

I met them, I got their numbers and I started asking them to lunch at least once a week (sometimes more). That small, very determined activity just leads to more. You have to do it very consistently.

Hosting a poker night is very similar. It will start small and sometimes not happen, but you have to be relentlessly consistent to get it established.

Corporate jobs disappeared due to the financial crisis one time and a hostile takeover another time (both of those I was personally happy about). And a couple startups were acquired sooner than expected. There can be upsides, yes, but it can still leave you with months of trying to figure out what to pursue next, and that can be a weight on your mind even when you're making the most of your time off. When you are committed to a full-time job, something you have to do every day, you may dread going to work sometimes or just wish you could hike up a mountain or something, but it helps frame your day and reduce the number of decisions you have to make, so when you don't have that there can be a significant cognitive load trying to decide how to spend your time in a way that others may not understand. "Oh, that's nice, you're consulting, how flexible, lucky you!"

Early in my career I learned about how to come out of the gate blazing fast since when I graduated from college a couple decades ago half of the tech jobs were gone, and I had to work hard for months after graduation just to find a specific kind of application development work I wanted at the time. I was fortunate to find that but many others were not and had to take whatever came their way. But it wasn't easy, and like you said, I found out early that lots of interviews on your calendar isn't necessarily promising, so over the years I've tried to find alternate routes to work by meeting with people inside the company first to find out what it's really like, and how much they want to fill a specific position, etc.

And more important than all the above, I recommend finding a listening ear to share your journey with, someone who will try to understand where you're at! I have some friends who have had the same job for a couple decades and even though they may not relate well, we can still try to share our different lives with each other and it's more helpful than you might think!