SWE Gets Lands A New Job

Intro

The market is brutal right now.

While there are signs that it might be heating up a bit, we still have a long way to go.

According to a quick google search, we saw over 260k layoffs in tech last year…absolutely brutal.

We’re likely not going to see a market like we did in 2020-2022 when it does come back.

(Hopefully I’m wrong, because I saw massive growth in my book of business & commission checks those years 😂)

But I DO think we go back to 2019 and years prior. A good candidate market without the steroids.

That being said, a great, jacked up senior SWE can get away with just cold online applications if they really wanted to (generally speaking of course).

But if you want those coveted remote roles, chances are you’ll have to go on a bit of offense.

The beauty of remote roles is that they offer so much flexibility in many ways a hybrid or onsite role simply can’t.

But for that exact reason, they’re also the most competitive roles out there.

You’re not just competing against candidates in your area, you’re competing with candidates across the country.

Further, you’re competing against the best candidates out there, because they’re are a ton of SWEs even willing to take pay cuts and leave FAANG for these types of roles.

So that being said - chances are you’ll have to get proactive and go on “offense” to land a remote gig.

That’s exactly what we did with this SWE who reached out to me in November.

Here was his situation:

• Over 6 years of experience

• Located in a CST time zone state, open to CST/EST time zones

• Backend SWE - Java, Spring Boot, AWS, CICD, Microservices, etc

• Working for a large consumer bank onsite 3x/week.

• Wife expecting a baby in Sept so needed to secure a remote role asap so he get ramped up asap and then take a bit of maternity down the road

• In a high traffic area, so commutes can take ~60 min just one way

• Solid resume - needed a bit of work but good for the most part

• Terrible LinkedIn - needed a full revamp

• Minimal network - only had 2 employers in 6 years but both found through cold applications

• Making a good $$$ package but would be willing to take a paycut for remote roles

Analysis of his situation

A strong SWE/Java Dev could reasonably get themselves a solid offer if they give themselves enough time. But a fully remote role, that’s another story.

It’s good that he’s potentially flexible to a lateral move $ wise and even a paycut for the flexibility that a remote role would offer.

It’s also great that he’s getting out ahead and looking to make the move now, this way he gains a bit of an internal reputation before he takes maternity and can help out his wife.

I asked why he didn’t want to just potentially coast until the baby is born, take a bunch of maternity, then use that time to look for a job. He just said that’s giving him too much anxiety and just wanted it out of the way and wanted that situation taken care of now so he can just focus on wife/baby at that time which makes sense.

He was open to 1x/week or limited travel each month.

It’s not good that he has 0 network, but we can’t work with.

The Call To Action

First we focused on his resume & linkedin. Easy, quick, let’s get that out of the way.

Since he was a jacked up SWE, I figured he should only spend 50% of his time doing cold online applications. At least in my corner of the market, there aren’t many solid java devs out there so there shouldn’t be too much competition per role he applies to.

I wanted him to focus on networking also. We went over the short term benefits of it - the obvious help him get a job asap. But he also understood the long term aspects of it on the call. Had he had a strong network, maybe he could have called upon it now to help him find a new remote role within his 1st, 2nd, 3rd degree network vs paying for a coaching call.

He wasn’t comfortable making content or doing a bunch of replies to build online relationships because he was worried his employer would see it. So we took another approach - target some other SWEs, Recruiters, & Decision Makers that post on Linkedin & X and instead of replying, forward their post into their DMs with a thoughtful response.

May not get the most responses this way, but IMO best course of action given the hand we were dealt.

Finally - we had him use boolean search strings to source out his own remote roles via LinkedIn to contact recruiters & decision makers directly.

The Results

I knew it wouldn’t take that long for this guy to land something that was ideal.

He had one job offer within 3 weeks (cold apply) that he didn’t end up accepting because although he was open to a paycut, they ended up offering 15% less. And given he found a new job so quickly, we realized if he put some effort into “going on offense”, maybe he could land something more ideal.

I gave him the pro’s and con’s of doing this, he decided he wanted to roll the dice and see if he can get something better.

As the search went on, he got more aggressive using the “boolean” method while still carving out time to network.

He loved the boolean search because it allowed him directly to contact the decision maker posting the role.

He ended up getting 2 more offers just a few weeks later - which is crazy considering the time of year when everything tends to slow down.

He accepted an offer where he took a minor pay cut - 5% - but then again he already had a great comp package that was hard to contend with considering his years of exp, the money saving from his commute, and the work life balance he’s gaining, he thought it was a no brainer.

If you’re looking for some help with your job search, you can sign up for my coaching services here:

I also have a relatively cheap guide to help put you on the right path which you can find here: