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Interviewed with about 28 companies for almost 3 months, without a single offer! I was starting to get really worried about money and burned out from interview

Interviewed with about 28 companies for almost 3 months, without a single offer! I was starting to get really worried about money and burned out from interviewing. In the past I've never interviewed with more than 2 or 3 before getting an offer I now this is incredibly privileged. I'm not humble-bragging, just observing the change in the market. As things usually turn out, during the last week of the 3-month search I received 3 different offers all at once. For reference and if it matters: I've got 14 years of experience.

wickedsickeune 4y ago
Thanks for sharing. If I may ask, when was the last time you looked for a job? I'm saying this because maybe you're having trouble due to ageism that you didn't encounter before.
- bradlys 4y ago
  I think age-ism isn’t that relevant when you’re under 40. There will be limited positions for someone who wants staff+ compensation though.
  - gt50201 4y ago
    what's staff+ comp nowadays?
    - olingern 4y ago
      Very wide range depending on the company. Startups and the like $200K/yr+ and equity. The equivalent at Google is $500K - ?. As an aside, Staff Engineers have to ride this strange line of being tech leads, managers, architects, and ICs. In my experience, one part or all parts will suffer. Will Larson's book[1] dances well around the ambiguity, but basically when you take a Staff Engineer job, it'll be unclear what you're signing up for. 1 - https://staffeng.com/book https://staffeng.com/book
    - bradlys 4y ago
      levels.fyi
- parentheses 4y ago
  Ageism is often conflated with higher compensation expectations.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    While it's certainly very real, it's conflated with a lot of things: compensation expectations, specialization, potentially not up on current trends, maybe set in ways, etc.
    - bcrosby95 4y ago
      I think a big one is there just being fewer old programmers so you don't see them as much so you think there's ageism. But the market has grown a ton over the past 10-20 years. None of my friends in their 40s have trouble getting jobs. This includes software jobs that tend to skew young, such as game dev and startups. I wouldn't doubt it exists, but anecdotally it doesn't seem to be such a huge problem that you can't continue coding until a standard retirement age.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        Maybe naive but I don't really see 40s as ageism territory in general. That said, a lot of people adapt. Go into management. More externally facing roles. Different types of companies.
        bcrosby95 4y ago
        I guess what's old is new? In my 20s I was told 30 is the end of the line. In my 30s I was told its the 40s. Now the bar is higher. Maybe I'm part of a large enough cohort of programmers that we continually push ageism out, and due to that it will be 'solved' as we hit our 60s and 70s.
        ghaff 4y ago
        The key is probably that you can't be doing at 40 what you're doing at 20. Whether that means better technical skills, better management skills, better communication skills, just better able to navigate a company and the industry... It probably does mean that, if someone just wants to code, they probably have a higher bar than people interested in doing a more diverse set of things.
- kleinsch 4y ago
  I just did a job search with ~15 years experience for a Staff+ position in Feb of this year, got interviews at most places I applied, multiple offers. From speaking to friends, the situation today is completely different. Multiple places I applied or had offers have locked down hiring and/or done layoff rounds. Those who are still hiring can be a lot more picky - either lower comp, higher skill bar, targeting underrepresented groups, etc.
parentheses 4y ago
I'm glad things are finally coming through. Best of luck. I had a similar experience looking for a job a few months ago. I got lucky with timing and joining a company that's optimizing for longer-term cash flow.
throw8383833jj 4y ago
not to diminish your success, but I've found similar results in the past. I think there's something about scarcity. As soon as one company knows another company wants you, all the sudden the 1st wants you now too. and if two other companies want you well, then you absolutely have to have that candidate. it's kinda messed up. but, congratulations!
godelski 4y ago
> In the past I've never interviewed with more than 2 or 3 before getting an offer. I know this is incredibly privileged. I'm not sure why you are saying this. You're in a rough spot and you're human. You don't have to qualify your struggle, even a universal one or one you do slightly better than others. The truth is that it shouldn't take interviewing with 28 companies to find a single offer. Interviewing at a handful before an offer sounds like it should be the (historical) norm, not a privilege. I know plenty of boomers who brag about how easy it is to get a job, with many talking about how they got hired as a walk-in to a technical engineering jobs. So don't put yourself down, we don't need a race to the bottom. We empathize with you because you're human.
- bckr 4y ago
  More of this
  - godelski 4y ago
    We got to stick up for one another and lift each other up. We're in the same tribe, even if we don't know it.
rdoherty 4y ago
I had the exact same experience about 5 months ago. > 40 applications, ~30 responses from recruiter, did at least 1 phone screen at 20 of them and around 10 full interviews (4-6 modules each). It was brutal and I don't recommend it. Almost 20 years of experience at great large & small companies in the SF Bay Area. I like to think that I'm relatively intelligent and competent, but man, some of the interviews were torture. Even interviews for what are mostly CRUD web app development positions were doing l33tcode interviews (literally, I googled them afterwards) of moderate CS algorithms. After 2 months of interviews I did get 3 offers at the same time. I've interviewed around here since ~2005 and I have to say it's still a crap shoot of if you'll get a good interview process. Some companies were great and had well rounded modules, focused on leadership, communication, design and just a little bit of programming. Others threw multiple l33tcode puzzles at you and had no idea what they really needed. Very frustrating.
- kirso 4y ago
  I always ponder, after the years of experience - wouldn't you just leave the interview if it feels like torture? I never ended up in a good place when it felt this way...
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    I'd say it's unprofessional to out & out leave the interview. Maybe for practical purposes it doesn't make a difference (though it can be a small world sometimes and you never know when something might come back to haunt you) but there's a certain amount of social norm & politeness involved, even if your own sentiment is "well they aren't respecting my time so why should I care?" Also it can come down to just a bad recruiting/HR process and the place itself is perfectly fine to work for, and maybe that doesn't come through in the initial screening nonsense but you figure it out from the final round. Or you just end up not having a choice if the market is tight and you would end up wanting to take the job for the paycheck even if it's only 6-12 months while you find something better.
    - kirso 4y ago
the_absurdist 4y ago
What are your skills and what kind of roles have you been applying to? Your experience has been quite different from mine. Laid off 3 weeks ago, 4 offers at slightly below what I was previously making. I'm a fullstack engineer.
brailsafe 4y ago
I've been in this situation enough times that I don't ever really feel ok until I have a year's worth of savings to cover the time it takes to find a new job. Of the 10 or so years I've been a developer, I've only maybe spent 5-7 working as one
nvarsj 4y ago
Yikes, 28 companies is something else. I had a somewhat similar experience in the last downturn in 2010 - first of all I couldn't even get an interview for like 3 months, then in the last 3 months of my garden leave I interviewed at about 8 places before getting a visa/offer. This was despite having a solid CV. It was something else, and incredibly distressing. You have my sympathies - I'm pretty sure tech interviewing over the years has traumatized me.
timmit 4y ago
Thanks for sharing, last year or early this year, job hunting is very easy, one month I got about 2 or 3 offers, but not it seems hard, and my current company planned to lay off people as well. Probably need to repeat your journey
bufferoverflow 4y ago
What was the ballpark of the offers, if you don't mind sharing?
flippinburgers 4y ago
Well I don't know what exactly is wrong with me but I typically have to interview for months with several companies before I even land one offer. I have more years of experience than you (for perspective).

wickedsickeune 4y ago

Thanks for sharing. If I may ask, when was the last time you looked for a job? I'm saying this because maybe you're having trouble due to ageism that you didn't encounter before.

bradlys 4y ago
I think age-ism isn’t that relevant when you’re under 40. There will be limited positions for someone who wants staff+ compensation though.
- gt50201 4y ago
  what's staff+ comp nowadays?
  - olingern 4y ago
    Very wide range depending on the company. Startups and the like $200K/yr+ and equity. The equivalent at Google is $500K - ?. As an aside, Staff Engineers have to ride this strange line of being tech leads, managers, architects, and ICs. In my experience, one part or all parts will suffer. Will Larson's book[1] dances well around the ambiguity, but basically when you take a Staff Engineer job, it'll be unclear what you're signing up for. 1 - https://staffeng.com/book https://staffeng.com/book
  - bradlys 4y ago
    levels.fyi
parentheses 4y ago
Ageism is often conflated with higher compensation expectations.
- ghaff 4y ago
  While it's certainly very real, it's conflated with a lot of things: compensation expectations, specialization, potentially not up on current trends, maybe set in ways, etc.
  - bcrosby95 4y ago
    I think a big one is there just being fewer old programmers so you don't see them as much so you think there's ageism. But the market has grown a ton over the past 10-20 years. None of my friends in their 40s have trouble getting jobs. This includes software jobs that tend to skew young, such as game dev and startups. I wouldn't doubt it exists, but anecdotally it doesn't seem to be such a huge problem that you can't continue coding until a standard retirement age.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Maybe naive but I don't really see 40s as ageism territory in general. That said, a lot of people adapt. Go into management. More externally facing roles. Different types of companies.
      - bcrosby95 4y ago
        I guess what's old is new? In my 20s I was told 30 is the end of the line. In my 30s I was told its the 40s. Now the bar is higher. Maybe I'm part of a large enough cohort of programmers that we continually push ageism out, and due to that it will be 'solved' as we hit our 60s and 70s.
        ghaff 4y ago
        The key is probably that you can't be doing at 40 what you're doing at 20. Whether that means better technical skills, better management skills, better communication skills, just better able to navigate a company and the industry... It probably does mean that, if someone just wants to code, they probably have a higher bar than people interested in doing a more diverse set of things.
kleinsch 4y ago
I just did a job search with ~15 years experience for a Staff+ position in Feb of this year, got interviews at most places I applied, multiple offers. From speaking to friends, the situation today is completely different. Multiple places I applied or had offers have locked down hiring and/or done layoff rounds. Those who are still hiring can be a lot more picky - either lower comp, higher skill bar, targeting underrepresented groups, etc.

parentheses 4y ago

I'm glad things are finally coming through. Best of luck. I had a similar experience looking for a job a few months ago. I got lucky with timing and joining a company that's optimizing for longer-term cash flow.

throw8383833jj 4y ago

not to diminish your success, but I've found similar results in the past. I think there's something about scarcity. As soon as one company knows another company wants you, all the sudden the 1st wants you now too. and if two other companies want you well, then you absolutely have to have that candidate. it's kinda messed up. but, congratulations!

godelski 4y ago

> In the past I've never interviewed with more than 2 or 3 before getting an offer. I know this is incredibly privileged. I'm not sure why you are saying this. You're in a rough spot and you're human. You don't have to qualify your struggle, even a universal one or one you do slightly better than others. The truth is that it shouldn't take interviewing with 28 companies to find a single offer. Interviewing at a handful before an offer sounds like it should be the (historical) norm, not a privilege. I know plenty of boomers who brag about how easy it is to get a job, with many talking about how they got hired as a walk-in to a technical engineering jobs. So don't put yourself down, we don't need a race to the bottom. We empathize with you because you're human.

bckr 4y ago
More of this
- godelski 4y ago
  We got to stick up for one another and lift each other up. We're in the same tribe, even if we don't know it.

rdoherty 4y ago

I had the exact same experience about 5 months ago. > 40 applications, ~30 responses from recruiter, did at least 1 phone screen at 20 of them and around 10 full interviews (4-6 modules each). It was brutal and I don't recommend it. Almost 20 years of experience at great large & small companies in the SF Bay Area. I like to think that I'm relatively intelligent and competent, but man, some of the interviews were torture. Even interviews for what are mostly CRUD web app development positions were doing l33tcode interviews (literally, I googled them afterwards) of moderate CS algorithms. After 2 months of interviews I did get 3 offers at the same time. I've interviewed around here since ~2005 and I have to say it's still a crap shoot of if you'll get a good interview process. Some companies were great and had well rounded modules, focused on leadership, communication, design and just a little bit of programming. Others threw multiple l33tcode puzzles at you and had no idea what they really needed. Very frustrating.

kirso 4y ago
I always ponder, after the years of experience - wouldn't you just leave the interview if it feels like torture? I never ended up in a good place when it felt this way...
- ineedasername 4y ago
  I'd say it's unprofessional to out & out leave the interview. Maybe for practical purposes it doesn't make a difference (though it can be a small world sometimes and you never know when something might come back to haunt you) but there's a certain amount of social norm & politeness involved, even if your own sentiment is "well they aren't respecting my time so why should I care?" Also it can come down to just a bad recruiting/HR process and the place itself is perfectly fine to work for, and maybe that doesn't come through in the initial screening nonsense but you figure it out from the final round. Or you just end up not having a choice if the market is tight and you would end up wanting to take the job for the paycheck even if it's only 6-12 months while you find something better.
  - kirso 4y ago

the_absurdist 4y ago

What are your skills and what kind of roles have you been applying to? Your experience has been quite different from mine. Laid off 3 weeks ago, 4 offers at slightly below what I was previously making. I'm a fullstack engineer.

brailsafe 4y ago

I've been in this situation enough times that I don't ever really feel ok until I have a year's worth of savings to cover the time it takes to find a new job. Of the 10 or so years I've been a developer, I've only maybe spent 5-7 working as one

nvarsj 4y ago

Yikes, 28 companies is something else. I had a somewhat similar experience in the last downturn in 2010 - first of all I couldn't even get an interview for like 3 months, then in the last 3 months of my garden leave I interviewed at about 8 places before getting a visa/offer. This was despite having a solid CV. It was something else, and incredibly distressing. You have my sympathies - I'm pretty sure tech interviewing over the years has traumatized me.

timmit 4y ago

Thanks for sharing, last year or early this year, job hunting is very easy, one month I got about 2 or 3 offers, but not it seems hard, and my current company planned to lay off people as well. Probably need to repeat your journey

bufferoverflow 4y ago

What was the ballpark of the offers, if you don't mind sharing?

flippinburgers 4y ago

Well I don't know what exactly is wrong with me but I typically have to interview for months with several companies before I even land one offer. I have more years of experience than you (for perspective).