I was laid off in early January, 7 months into a job I hoped to keep for some time. I was in the second round of layoffs, the first came 2 weeks into my employm

I was laid off in early January, 7 months into a job I hoped to keep for some time. I was in the second round of layoffs, the first came 2 weeks into my employment, so it was a rocky road but I was looking forward to 2023. I spent the first month or two only half-heartedly looking for work. I sent out enough cold applications to meet UI work search requirements, and I was applying to jobs I was truly interested in and would have accepted, but I've never had good luck with cold apps and didn't expect any different this time. Updating my LinkedIn is what turned the tide. The week before I accepted a new job, I was interviewing at 9 places. Two turned me down, I ended two others midway through, and ended up with 5 offers, the most I've ever had. Three months after being laid off I started a job I'm really excited about and it's going well so far. Managed to get a slight pay bump over my last job, but I also turned down a much larger potential increase.I think this market might be the best it's ever been for a specific kind of engineer: 10+ yrs experience, ML-adjacent, looking for all-remote at early startups. My big lesson is that cold apps aren't even worth the time to send. I got 1 positive responses out of dozens of apps (mostly no response, a few no's), including on YC's Work At A Startup. As for the industry, I'm very excited about the general industry, especially the ML ecosystem, but I expect tough times ahead for all the companies that peaked before 2023.