This. With the exception of super early stage startups that could easily go belly up fast, or small mom&pop shops, networks and connections are most likely to o

This. With the exception of super early stage startups that could easily go belly up fast, or small mom&pop shops, networks and connections are most likely to only get you to an leetcode phone screen. From then on, you're just going to traverse the leetcode whiteboard interview gauntlet like any other candidate. I have a friend/ex-colleague that I would describe as a "master networker". He has a huge network including some pretty senior executives at various NYC hedge funds, and even a billionaire or two. I kid you not in that he can literally make a few calls and get a "developer job" at a hedge fund. The downside is that he has to be extremely unpicky and be willing to settle for very unsexy jobs like shuffling XML feed files using SSIS or working with Excel VBA or legacy ASP.NET Webforms code, etc. But all of them still pay very well, so...