How To Find A Tech Job In An Impossible Market (ex-Amazon Principal Engineer)

I've conducted over 850 technical interviews at Amazon and train thousands on how to assess technical talent in this video I'll share six actionable steps you should take today if you're looking for a tech job I guarantee you're not doing all six the job market is competitive right now making it hard to stand out follow the advice in this video and you'll have a better chance than 99% of other candidates if you're new to the channel welcome my name is Steve win a former Amazon principal engineer turned content creator my goal is is to help 1

million people uplevel their careers by taking a structured and Engineering approach to their lives and career want more sign up for my free Weekly Newsletter or join my Discord community of over 5,500 encouraging people who are also upleveling their careers you'll find links for both in the description below let's start by looking at the big picture getting your next job involves two phases Landing the interview and nailing the interview focusing on one but not the other is a losing strategy if you get interviews but don't prepare you won't get hired but the opposite is also

true you can spend all of your time preparing for an interview that never happens it's tough to balance both when you're not getting any bites but here's what I know opportunities often come in Avalanches after a long dry spell suddenly three opportunities will pop up all at once so my first piece of advice is to intentionally split your time between Landing interviews and preparing for them don't prepare sequentially just because the job getting process happens that way prepare in parallel if you have no trouble Landing interviews Focus only on Preparation if you're in top interviewing

shape concentrate only on Landing interviews but that's not most people the common failure mode I see is this people haven't had a call back in months their days consists of robotically applying to jobs half-heartedly attempting tough Le code questions or tinkering with side projects they feel accomplished because they've applied to so many jobs but they're also caught up on all of the latest TV shows and video games then when they finally get a call back they Panic they're trying to calculate how long it'll take to get into Peak interview shape when can I come in

for an interview um I think I'm free in about a year hello hello you still there you want your interviewing skills ready when you need them pushing off an interview for too long has two drawbacks companies want to fill positions quickly and you'll stop applying for other jobs while you cram keeping your skills fresh doesn't take much effort if you've prepared adequately it's like an airplane it takes a lot of energy to take off but once you're at cruising altitude maintaining it is much easier let your skills slip too far and you'll waste fuel trying

to bring them back up here's a rule of thumb you should be ready for an interview within a week's notice if you're not there yet weigh your time towards preparation maybe 20% for job searching 80% for prep as you become more prepared invert that ratio to 80% job searching and then 20% preparation these percentages are rough so you should do what works for you but the key is keeping your interview skills hot if you got a call back tomorrow could you interview within a week if no then spend more time preparing don't waste all of

that time waiting but also don't let the pendulum swing the other way you still need to dedicate time to finding jobs let's talk about finding opportunities it's easy to fall into a rut doing the same things repeatedly I've applied to over 500 jobs over the last 6 months and life literally has no meaning right now none of these jobs requires a soul right so it should still be good when people say they've applied to hundreds or even thousands of jobs they're often doing it one-dimensionally they'll go to a job board and machine gun their applications

if what you're doing isn't working you need to switch it up you can't keep putting all of your effort into the same thing and expect a different result did you know that 60% of people get their jobs through networking now I'm not saying 60% of your time should be networking but it probably shouldn't be 0% either does your networking consists of only sending LinkedIn connection requests how's that working out for you and that's my second point mix things up if you've been trying the same approach without results persistence isn't about knocking on the same door

a 100 times it's about knocking on a 100 different doors make it a game find variations in your job search if you're using job boards apply directly to the company websites looking for virtual positions try searching locally find all companies within a certain radius and work through that list apply to jobs outside of your target area if you're targeting in-person jobs try applying to Virtual positions too not hearing back still for a subset of places you've applied to go deeper and do some follow-ups send personalized emails to the recruiter try to track down the recruiter

or hiring manager on LinkedIn and send them a note or make a connection trying the same unsuccessful approach over and over is demoralizing when your method gets stale make it a game to mix things up and find variations persistence is crucial but make sure you're not just knocking on the same door repeatedly my next tips are for people trying to break into the industry entrylevel folks are often asking me what side projects will catch recruiters and hiring managers eyes so you've got free time after applying to jobs you feel prepared for interviews doing a side

project is a great way to spend your time compared to gaming binge watching shows or partying but the question remains what side projects should you target even if you're unemployed you don't have infinite time there are other constraints too side projects help you learn new skills but you also want to do something impressive for your resume or portfolio now I don't know your specific skills languages Frameworks or whether you're into the front end or back end and my third tip is to do high leverage side projects you want projects that check all of the boxes

while minimizing effort here's what to consider one it needs to be presentable have a clear output in in mind is it a deployed website or an app is it code on GitHub blog posts be clear about what your artifacts are going to be and its quality level your project can't be high leverage without a tangible output two it needs to be time boxed aim for a sharable result within a month shorter it may not be noteworthy longer risks never finishing it doesn't need to be 100% complete but it does have to be a presentable Milestone

yeah I've been working on this app it's like grinder but for your pets I don't know what it's going to launch dude um we're still in the product Market fit stage three learn one big thing from the project don't be overly ambitious avoid projects that require multiple new skills that's a recipe for failure be upfront about the main skill or technology you want to gain keep the other aspects within your comfort zone if you're stuck on too many layers without enough context the project is going to be doomed four document your project and and learning

by building in public you don't need to be an expert to create content if you make something that would have been useful to you before you started that's a win building in public has other side benefits as well it gives you a sharable artifact it provides context for your portfolio solidifies your learning as Fineman said if you can't explain it simply you don't understand it it improves your communication skills it's accessible for those who can't dive into your code don't assume recruiters have deep technical knowledge or that the hiring managers have time to scrutinize your

code they're more likely to read your readme file make it a write up of what you did and the skills that you learned and interesting insights that you gained if you can do these four things it doesn't matter what your side project is or whether it has many users it'll be high leverage and add value to your job search if you already have a tech job but are looking for a change this next tip is for you is this you you want a new job because you're underemployed work at a small shop or lack a

traditional Computer Science Background but you can't stand your job and think you should start preparing for interviews but instead of diving into Elite code brushing up on system design and starting interview prep you tell yourself I should get my fundamentals right first you eye a course on corsera on data structures and algorithms or one on AI or maybe you want to read designing data intensive applications cover to cover because you've never designed systems before so you start the course but don't finish it you stop reading after chapter 2 because work picks up then you forget

about job hunting because things improve slightly at work 6 months later you think man I should probably start interview prep again and the cycle continues that's my fourth point if you're serious about getting a new job don't wait to get started if you want something and now is the right time just start it's easy to talk yourself out of it because it'll be uncomfortable work but the alternative is wasting years of your life at lower pay with less status you've got one shot at life and work is at least half of your your waking hours

would you rather dread going into the office and Wilt or go to an awesome place that pays well recognizes your work and helps you thrive yes updating your resume and applying for jobs is a pain nobody looks forward to it interview prep is annoying and often unrelated to your day-to-day work but that's how they hire people if you're worried about coding interviews start grinding leak code you don't need to take a course on data structures and algorithms or read a book to get the fundamentals if you get stuck on a problem great study what you

need to unlock that understanding the problem with pausing until you learn all of the fundamentals is that it'll take years that's why it takes about four years to get an undergraduate degree you can absolutely take courses and brush up on your fundamental knowledge but do it after your interview preparation let the interview prep tell you what concepts you need to study for example suppose you're doing a lead code question and Cobble together a solution then you research other Solutions and realize you don't understand how they prove one approach is better than the other that's when

you should start to brush up on algorithmic complexity or maybe you're doing a system design question and the topic of consistency keeps on popping up what is it and why is it important your job now is to figure that out this type of preparation is so much better than reading ddia cover to cover so if you want a new job stop talking about it don't add unnecessary dependencies be about it and get started get started get started get started now you'll be so glad that you did when you have a better job if you're looking

for your first job in Tech and aren't getting any bites this next tip is for you so you want to be a software developer that's what you went to school for that's your target you want that Big Fang salary but you're not getting any bites you've mixed it up you got creative about applying you've been networking your butt off you're ready to go at a moment's notice for interviews you've done what seems like every side project that you can think of nothing when I graduated from college in 2005 I made it my goal to become

a software engineer at Big Tech I to Everything Under the Sun by 2006 while talking with a friend an opportunity came up at Amazon for a support engineer role that my friend could guarantee an interview for I thought about it for a long time I wanted to be a software developer so bad so my choice was to hold out and waight or take a detour I figured having a job was better than not having one but the risk was losing sight of my goal so I resolved to learn as much as I could in my

support role while inside the company within 18 months I was able to land three internal offers for software developer roles and that's the fifth point if you're not getting any bites for the role that you're looking for try looking for adjacent roles there are roles for testers support Engineers like how I started project managers sres syf roles cyber security not just traditional software development evaluate all opportunities even if they aren't your primary target it's better to have a job soaking in as much information as possible getting exposed to the software development life cycle at a

proper company gaining professional EXP experience rather than waiting for the exact perfect thing to come along it's another way to knock on more doors and it worked out for me I'd like to take a second to thank today's video sponsor brilliant.org I say this a lot but I have an unlimited budget for Learning and self-improvement Brilliant is the best way to learn math science and computer science interactively passive reading or watching videos is probably the worst way to learn something it gives you a false sense that you understand things deeply what's worse is that you

waste a lot of time pseudo learning when you could have been actually learning bril has lessons on mathematics computer science Ai and more with new ones added every month they've added a course on llms that I've just completed I'm no beginner when it comes to machine learning and computer science but I'm also not an expert in the bleeding edge of generative AI I use brilliant to make sure that I have a solid understanding of the underlying Concepts in terminology this enables me to conduct deeper research and continue more advanced learning brilliant is a wonderful resource

for me so I can stay up to date on things now that I'm no longer working a corporate Tech job try everything brilliant has to offer free for a full 30 days visit brilliant.org aifeng engineered or click on the link in the description where you can get 20% off of brilliant's annual premium subscription new content is added all of the time they just added a course on predicting with probability creative coding and exploring data visually so go check it out I'd like to thank brilliant again for sponsoring today's video my last tip may be the

most important I know it's really tough out there but you have to believe that you're going to get a job it's just a matter of time your job is to shrink that time between now and when you land it if you get rejected from 99 job openings the hundredth is an independent event it doesn't depend on the other 99 it's important that you don't sabotage yourself feel like we had a connection here let me get your number so I can take you out sometime but before you say anything just know I've asked 99 other women

out and they've all turned me down so what do you say and that's my last point you need to get your head right the digital age has changed our expectations for when things happen before we had phones in our pockets if you wanted to look something up you had to go to the library if you wanted to watch a movie or play a video game you have to go somewhere to buy or rent it now we get everything instantly so when it comes to finding a job we have this timeline in our heads about how

long we think it's going to take we think it should only take us a month or two but it might take 6 months or a year or even longer we don't control the economy and hiring but we do control our inputs we control our effort and our attitude this is super important because most of our effort is going to result in Failure whether because we're competing with too many people we make a big mistake during an interview or they pass on us for some other reason but you only lose if you don't put your best

foot forward learn from your mistakes or give up if you avoid these pitfalls you'll eventually find a job your job is to control what you can control you have to believe that it's going to happen it's just a matter of time I believe in you if you found this video helpful there are many more tips on finding a job in this video if you're having problems finding time for side projects check out this video on how I was able to do five successful side projects while juggling a full-time job and my family life