Entries tagged 'job search'

I took this photo back in 2005 of a building at 3rd and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles as it was just starting to be converted into residential lofts. Gutted, full of promise, and destined for better things. I can relate.

Another month in the rear view mirror, and time for me to reflect on my job search and remind people that I’m still out on these streets looking.

Some days it feels like I am not any closer to having a job than I was when this all started. I have a lot of applications behind me, a handful of screening calls with recruiters, a smaller number of interviews, and as of yet no offers. I have been ghosted on countless applications and once after a screening call. (That position still gets re-listed periodically.)

I am in the interview process with a very large tech company with a drawn-out interview process. I have very mixed feelings about it. Do I really want to work there? Am I going to pass through their interview hoops? A big factor in those mixed feelings is that if an offer does happen, it will require moving to another city and working out of an office several days a week.

Some of the rejections, even when they came early, have been hard. There have been positions at a few different companies that were focused on building internal tools for the company, which is something I believe I would be particularly well-suited to do, so I have been looking harder at listings that push that button.

I am grateful to everyone who has offered support, and leads on positions.

An adjustment to my résumé that I made a while ago was to split out the software engineering work I did for our store into a position at Imperial Dog, Inc. which is the name of the corporation that did business as Raw Materials Art Supplies and served as the production company behind some of Celia’s short films.

I used the title of “Staff Software Engineer” as a sort of anchor to the level that I see myself at, but in hindsight that may have been too aggressive when applying to lower-titled roles like “Senior Software Engineer.” So I’ve updated it to “Consulting Software Engineer” which feels sort of vague and non-leveled and hopefully not similarly off-putting.

I am progressing along the interview path for a few positions now, so I have some hope that this drought will end soon and I can escape this particular purgatory.

I have slowed down on applying to jobs as I hold out hope for the current prospects, and I have been getting more involved with the PHP project again in some of the same ways that I was involved 20+ years ago.

I tackled a couple of projects in the documentation, including filling in some of the missing history of the project, removing some ancient documentation for XForms (a technology that never really got traction), and adding background and supporting material about the hash functions. A couple of these were picked up from outstanding issues in the repository, or inspired by conversations on the internals mailing list about possible upcoming deprecations.

I am also trying to dive in on the infrastructure and governance sides, which is slower going. I have mostly documented who the members of the PHP organization on GitHub are. I have access again to the machine where the mailing lists run, so I have been working on getting its configuration properly handled within the big ball of code that the team uses to manage the project infrastructure, and trying to help clean that stuff up and make sure more of the setup is known and documented. The team supporting all of this infrastructure had dwindled over the years but things have been kind of chugging along.

One way to sum up what I am trying to do by getting involved in the PHP community again is to leverage my privilege (from past participation and the usual privilege I carry) to clean up some of the on-ramps for new people to get involved. It moves more slowly than I would like at times, but I am glad to have this time now to apply pressure to the problems that I see. Seeing how the Python community has organized themselves is an inspiration.

I thought it might be interesting to go through the 10 positions that job site Otta suggested to me today, and write down some notes as I went through each one.

1. Software Engineer, Chime: This is part of the “I Heart Ruby” team at Chime which supports the larger engineering team in how they use Ruby. Sounds like the type of team I would really enjoy being part of, but my experience with Ruby is very minimal, so not a great fit for me. Not applying.
2. Full Stack Engineer, Stripe: This is on the Connect team. I applied for a different position about six weeks ago on the Developer Products team but didn’t get past the application stage. Stripe is also a Ruby shop, but they don’t mention it in the job listing so I am guessing Ruby experience isn’t a hard requirement. I have updated my resumé since the last time, maybe the newest tweaks will help. Applied (again).
3. Senior Software Engineer, Airbnb: This is on the Guest Displays & Platforms team. It looks like they are a Java/JavaScript shop? Again, nothing in the job requirements. Looks like I haven’t actually applied at Airbnb before now, but I think most of the roles I have seen were more senior, and I have sort of complicated feelings about Airbnb that made it easy to skip over. Applied this time, though.
4. Staff Backend Software Engineer, Self Financial: Part of the Consumer Verticals Card Team. Requirements include “fluency with the development of Python/Flask/FastAPI code” which is a stretch for me, and since it is listed as a Staff-level position, probably not right. Not applying.
5. Senior Full-Stack Engineer, Toku: “Web 3.0” — hard pass. (And fixed my Otta filter to hide that industry along with “cryptocurrency.”)
6. Senior Backend Engineer, HashiCorp : Don’t feel like I meet many of the requirements, and also not wild about the company’s turn away from open source. Not applying.
7. Principal Software Engineer, Voxel51: Not qualified, not applying.
8. Staff Software Engineer, dbt Labs: This role wasn’t right, and I also considered another Senior Software Engineer role but just don’t have experience with any of the components of their tech stack. Not applying.
9. Core Software Engineer, ClickHouse: This is intriguing because I think my experience at MySQL is pretty directly relevant. Applied. (I had to submit it using Firefox because their application system decided I was a bot when I used Safari, even after completing a recaptcha.)
10. C/C++ Software Development Engineer, Percona: This was funny to get right after ClickHouse, because it’s to work on Valkey, another column-store database. The job listing specifically asks for “deep understanding of Valkey/Redis” which makes me hesitant about applying, but I also have connections to Percona so I am going to reach out that way.
11. Backend Software Engineer, DoorDash: This is a role I had actually saved a few days ago, but hadn’t really looked at closely. Now that I did and looking at their tech stack, I just don’t think it’s a good fit for me. Not applying.

So eleven possibilities whittled down to three applications through the usual channels and one possibility to explore via networking. A good day for Otta compared to most, although I think just the decision to write this forced me to look more closely at roles I may have otherwise dismissed more quickly.

The listings on LinkedIn were bleak today, and I didn’t apply to any of them.

I also got a rejection for another position after the initial screening with the hiring manager. Never a great feeling, but one I have certainly had to get used to as I continue to cast a wide net for my next position.

(I originally wrote this on LinkedIn, so consider this a bit of reverse-POSSE.)

I think one of the most frustrating things about being a software engineer searching for a job is the terrible job listing/search websites out there.

ZipRecruiter search is ridiculously awful. They seem to have thrown a bunch of AI at things so they can tell you a job is a “Good match” or “Poor match” or even “Not a match” and then you can’t even filter or sort on that. (And a problem that is probably more unique to my job search is how it likes to recommend healthcare worker jobs if you search for “PHP.”)

LinkedIn keeps track of jobs you applied for and somehow doesn’t let you remove them from that list. (And there was weeks when it kept showing me jobs managing chain restaurants like KFC in Nashville.)

Otta is actually probably my favorite even though sometimes it feels like every software engineer job there is for Python, Go, and/or React. (And it is quite focused on startups and big-tech.)

That's just the job listings, then you have to wade through a mess of job application portals and sites that will, if you’re lucky, ingest your work history from LinkedIn or a standard resume and not require you to re-enter your job history again with a lot of questionable custom UI elements.

The final step is the almost total lack of response you get to job applications. Even just a semi-automated “we will not be going forward with your application” is too much to expect, I guess. I know the number of applications can be overwhelming, but do the people applying a kindness and tell them no.

I just want a job making the people’s lives better through software. I hope I don’t go insane having to use terrible software in order to get one.