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Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

I guess I got lucky in when I started out as a career switcher in 2017

I guess I got lucky in when I started out as a career switcher in 2017. Iirc I applied 6 places, had 4 interviews, got 2 offers. Mind you this was as an effectively junior person applying to mid-level positions. I like to think that having so few interviews allowed me to concentrate my enthusiasm and highest mental energy into the interviews I had, but maybe it's just survivors bias. Since then I've taken 3 interviews and gotten two great offers in the 50+% percentile for US based software engineering roles. I'm a not-that-bright grug-brained developer, so I'm sure it wasn't because I was blowing people out of the water with my brain power. I'm not sure I have the energy to do a numbers-game applicant strategy. I hate interviewing generally, and live coding causes my brain to lock-up. So I only apply places I am genuinely excited to work for, and places that I reason would be generally excited to have a good team player who is nonetheless a grug-brained developer. I can get genuinely excited about pretty run-of-the-mill work though, and have strong opinions very loosely held. …

Original discussionFinding a new software developer job307 source comments · at import
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QW

I don't question that is takes hard work, even for more senior devs like the author, but 30 apps leading to 3 offers is a dream. Most early-career people are probably at >100 app with maybe a few interviews and hopefully one offer.

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_D

Energy itself is a winning strategy. It translates to an initiative in an employers eyes, which is something that cannot be taught.

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AE

> I'm not sure I have the energy to do a numbers-game applicant strategy. Neither did I until it became a neccessity. Did 4 job interviews in 7 years and got them all in one go. Then I quit, and there was a long drought of people just not wanting to hire me for 6 months. The first rejection I took personally, but after 10 interviews with crazier and crazier questions you can’t do anything other than see it as a numbers game. Anything else destroys any sense of self worth you have.

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VU

I’m not sure I’ve applied 30 total times across… like eight employers. I also make middle-of-the-trimodal-graph comp, though, not FAANG/finance tier.

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