I started my job search on December 24th, 2024¹. The process concluded September 12th, 2025. That’s 262 days of applying to jobs, grinding LeetCode, sweating interviews, frustration, elation, success, and failure. This post details the trials and tribulations of my 9-month job search and what I learned along the way.

Overview

In all, I put 340 hours² into the process. This time was bucketed into 5 categories:

• Searching for jobs
• Applying to jobs
• Interview prep (LeetCode, system design, behavioral, etc.)
• Interviewing
• Organizing³

I received 2 offers, 25 rejections, and withdrew from 4.

Searching for jobs

Honestly, my job search methodology was not scientific; open LinkedIn, skim jobs. I also just slowly gathered information around interesting companies and aggregated information via Blind, Glassdoor, and other platforms. This gave me a general feeling for companies/opportunities to pursue and not pursue. In my day-to-day (reading, podcasts, etc.), if I came across a company that sounded cool, I applied⁴.

Applying to jobs

Applying to jobs takes a lot of time since it involves reading countless job descriptions, filling in personal information, and providing answers to the same voluntary self-identification questions over and over again. In my experience, manually applying to jobs had minimal ROI⁵, as almost all of my applications were rejected. The only real advice I have on this front is to just use a Google Doc for your resume, since companies use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to parse resumes. The easier it is for these systems to coherently parse your resume, the more likely your application will pass an initial screen.

Interview prep

Oh, Lord. I spent hundreds of hours grinding LeetCode (grind.rip). This occurred mostly on weekends and in the early morning, but also during my work hours (sorry Workiva). It became a second job and at my peak I was clocking 20-hour weeks of purely interview prep. Again, the more time and energy you put into preparing for the technical portion of the interview, the better you will do. I only ended up getting through ~50% of the material I wanted to cover, but since it’s impossible to know what type of coding questions you will get, your best bet is to just go as deep and broad as possible⁶.

Interviewing

In all, I spent close to 40 hours actually interviewing. For me, this process was exhausting, as my day centered around the adrenaline spike and long come down from the process, effectively destroying my productivity and mood for the day. Since I work from home, I did not need to scuttle off to an empty conference room like my RTO comrades, but it was challenging all the same, especially on top of actually doing my job.

Generally, and I feel like a broken record at this point, the more you interview, the better you get across all domains (coding, communication, eloquence, etc.). Therefore, you should spend a considerable amount of time just interviewing in order to get better at it. Write down the questions, reflect on what went well, and be prepared to bomb⁷.

Organizing

I ended up with a 36 page Google Doc with every interaction I had with a company, all my notes, reflections, etc. This proved extremely useful when organizing interview applications at various points in the process. It also served as a dumping ground for all the information I picked up along the way. In all, this was about 10 hours of work, but was crucial for giving me a sense of control.

Insights

Elevator Pitch

You will be asked about your background. A lot. You should be able to recite your elevator pitch perfectly, tailoring it to the specific audience.

Here was mine:

I am a Senior Software Engineer on the Platform Operations team, where I lead
a team of 5 engineers that is responsible for the software development
lifecycle at Workiva.

I build software that allows engineering teams to deploy code to production
safely and reliably 1000s of times per day.

Some of the projects I've led recently are a distributed caching and storage
system and Workiva's first AI platform that allows teams to deploy LLM-based
solutions to production.

I am currently working on...

I am passionate about joining...

Make sure to emphasize the reason you are interested in joining whatever company you’re interviewing with. Companies want to hear that you are aligned with their mission.

Burner Companies

The first few interviews will be rough. You’ll probably end up sounding unprepared and incoherent. But by the end of the process you will be incredibly smooth. I was amazed at the difference between my early interviews and my later interviews. I sounded incredibly professional (at least that is what I tell myself). For this reason you should take interviews at undesirable companies just to get the reps in before you shoot your shot with a company you are passionate about.

Stories

A compelling story in STAR format is the foundation of a good interview. Learn STAR format and write and rehearse. Over and over. Make sure you emphasize your contribution and what you did.

The STAR format is as follows:

• Situation
• Task
• Action
• Result

Failure

Be prepared to fail. A lot. Be prepared to get a lifetime’s worth of flush letters. After the 5th rejection or so, I felt nothing.

Coding

One thing I realized is, in live coding exercises the problems aren’t that hard (at least for the companies I interviewed with). You just need to be able to type fast and get a solution.

In addition, interviewers are using AI-resistant techniques to suss out cheaters. So you still have to know your shit.

Wayne Gretzky Mindset

So cliche and banal, but I’m putting it here anyway:

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

You have to be active. Apply. Reach out. Quantity is a quality of its own.

As a personal anecdote, I was interviewing with two companies (both of which I ended up getting offers from), but preferred one over the other. I wanted to bail on the interview process at one of the companies. My wife (God love her), said to stick it out and do the interviews. This turned out to be wildly good advice because not only did I get an offer from the company, I also ended up almost joining the company over my preferred choice. In the end, I was able to use the offer as leverage to get a much higher TC from my preferred company.

Energy Management

One of the most difficult aspects of interviewing is the manic, schizophrenic nature of your days balancing life, interviews, and work. This was hard. As I alluded to earlier, days in which I had interviews consisted of a crescendo of excited energy followed by a crash of fuzzy rumination. These days usually were unproductive and I was more irritable. This only worsened when I got to the final stages of interviewing, which added the neurotic email checking to the blend of negative valenced activity⁸.

Conclusion

I’m not extremely intelligent⁹. What I possess is a grit and determination that allows me to keep showing up day after day even after months of failure. Hard work will pay off. You just don’t know when. Keep pushing and keep grinding.