Summary of my (4.5 YOE) SWE job hunt results
Posted by CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 90 comments
Intro:
Making this post to encourage others that it's possible to land a new job in this really crazy market even with just a few YOE.
My background: I'm a backend SWE with some experience in frontend. Located in the SF bay area (also a US citizen) with a CS degree. Previously worked at two startups, getting laid off at both. The most recent layoff happened in late March 2026, but had gotten notice in mid February which helped me get a head start on the job hunt before I was no longer an employee.
Prep:
- LeetCode for coding interviews, specifically NeetCode 150. I started (re)solving these problems back in November 2025. Without getting too deep into it, I wasn't super happy with my situation at my now previous job and wanted to start prepping even though I didn't start job hunting till my layoff announcement. 1-2 problems a day. Ended up getting through 101/150 problems.
- HelloInterview for system design. I had bought Grokking the System Design Interview a couple years back, but I found that the material and practice problems on HelloInterview were a lot more digestible. I would read 1 section every day and worked through one practice problem every other day. I only started prepping in early March, and looking back, I wished that I had spent more time studying systems. It did help that I was working on a lot of system & LLD at my last job.
- I didn't practice for behavioral interviews. I felt confident enough to get through these rounds by referring back at my previous projects & past experiences.
The Hunt:
- Cold applied to 3-5 jobs every weekday. A few friends recommended that I use Jobright to apply.
- Used Claude to tailor my resume based on the job description, but made my own edits afterwards.
- I was able to get some referrals, but only 1 of those led me into their interview loop, and later offer (which I accepted).
- To my surprise, a lot of recruiters reached out to me on LinkedIn compared to previous years. A majority of these are AI based startups, but I've also gotten reached out by a couple of larger companies.
- There's a trend with non-LeetCode type coding interviews for startups (not all but some). These are problems that the company had faced before, but modified to be solved in 1 hour. Examples are working with JSON data for some type of payment processing or conducting a code review with a given function.
- All the companies that I've interviewed for were either 5 days in office or hybrid. I've also applied to fully remote positions, but never got a response back. These seem to be very competitive.
- I had at least 1 interview a weekday throughout all of March.
Stats:
- Applications: 90
- Cold apps: 68
- Referrals: 9
- Recruiters: 13
- No response: 46
- Rejected: 39
- Post apply: 30
- Post interview: 9
- Companies interviewed: 14
- Ghosted: 1
- Withdrew application: 2
- Offers: 2
- Accepted: 1
Total time: \~2.5 months
Sankey Diagram: https://imgur.com/a/DpKez6u
Michaeli_Starky@reddit
Leetcode is the most useless thing ever.
AttitudeImportant585@reddit
its never been about usefulness but a measure of how much effort you can dish out. more of a personality test, as is all standardized tests out there. if you made if this far without knowing this, well, you are on a spectrum
stoneg1@reddit
I interview up to 3 people a week, it’s insane how many people just dont study at all for a coding problem. They know its coming but just dont prepare. Its not that they cant do the leetcode problem thats the reason they fail the interview, its that they knew something was coming up but didnt prepare for it. Thats a pretty strong signal as to the kind of coworker they would be
TheBoringDev@reddit
I’m one of those people, I never prepare. I find leetcode so useless as a hiring mechanism (literally nothing to do with the actual job) that I take it as a strong point against the company, and potentially signals coworkers who put up with bad practices. Perfectly happy to do a real coding challenge that resembles real work, and generally do quite well on those, but leetcode is one of the dumbest things this industry does.
stoneg1@reddit
Leetcode questions are super flawed but i dont know of a better system. Imo its the best worst option, the nice part about them is that everyone knows whats coming and all you have to do is put in a few hours for a fully remote 300k+ job. I dont think you should be solving leetcode hards, those are a red flag, but if you cant do a dfs then you just didnt do your homework.
Varrianda@reddit
There isn’t a better system which is why it’s stuck for so long. Too many people can bullshit through behavioral/systems interviews. It’s hard to do that with a leetcode round.
Then people will say “oh well it’s not practical”. Neither is expecting me to remember how to make an API call in 12 different languages and 3 different frameworks, or playing language trivia. “This guy didn’t know an obscure concept in Java, let’s pass him up”.
stoneg1@reddit
Exactly, there just isn’t a great way to ensure someone can code without coding. People seem to want to just avoid the coding rounds all together and i guess replace that with something behavioral but its just impossible to use those rounds to judge technical ability.
TheBoringDev@reddit
Ask a real problem that resembles actual work? That’s what I do when I interview people. My go-tos are a deeply nested json thing pulling records off of a queue, or building a type of in-memory database you could use for mocking. Both easily doable in the time, and have actual “design an interface” parts, and give me a good idea what kind of code people produce/how they think about it that you’re not going to get from leetcode.
Varrianda@reddit
Both are core DS&A problems, what? It’s kind of ironic that you say “real work” and talk about two algorithm problems. Traversing JSON is literally tree traversal, and a simple in-memory database can be a multitude of data structures.
forgot_previous_acc@reddit
No offense man but it's so tiring to do leetcode when you have a full time job. I can understand if you are college pass out and have ample of time. But when people have full time job and other responsibilities, leetcode ain't just worth it. I have been labeled workaholic, got countless stupid star performer of the quarter awards but still i won't spend time on leetcode, so you shouldn't judge someone's work ethic or attach any meaning just because someone didn't do leetcode.
stoneg1@reddit
I get that, and i generally agree with it. Studying leetcode like crazy is not what i nor my company expects though, we even tell people in the interview invitation what they should know how to do, but a lot of people come in having no clue how to bfs or dfs when those were half of the topics we told them we might ask about.
Michaeli_Starky@reddit
It's like a puzzle game. Very little practical value. Better spend time solving real world problems.
mikelson_6@reddit
If you can’t solve Leetcode medium how I can trust you with real life problem? The thought process remains the same
Jaeriko@reddit
Most people cannot solve leetcode problems in an impressive manner inside the regular interview time frame and environment. It's a truly abnormally specific skillset that is related to but not realistically honed by practical development work. Interviews based around them are selecting for people that know they will be tested on specific sets of Leetcode algorithms and have the time to prepare to replicate the best possible solution for those, not the kind of people that are actually good at solving development problems. Sometimes those overlap, and but one does not necessarily lead to the other.
Michaeli_Starky@reddit
If I can solve Leetcode problem how can you trust I can solve a real problem?
Here, the correct question to ask yourself.
Varrianda@reddit
Because if you can learn to do leetcode problems, you can likely learn how to make an API call and transform data. It’s not rocket science 🤦♂️
It’s much easier to standardize DS&A questions than it is to do API implementation. I’ve written APIs in like 6 or 7 languages and a multitude of frameworks and each one is a different implementation. A hash map is…a hash map.
LatterCaterpillar735@reddit
what's the context behind this?
Michaeli_Starky@reddit
The practicality is close to zero.
Fit_Illustrator_2783@reddit
that sankey diagram is pretty detailed
GlobalCurry@reddit
I miss 2018 when I could just walk in and get a job by showing I have a strong interest in technology, no leetcode bullshit. Leetcode is cancer.
SpritaniumRELOADED@reddit
No idea why Leetcode is considered relevant by employers considering it's just a bunch of problems that were solved in 1970
DurianDiscriminat3r@reddit
For faang it makes sense because they have to go through so many candidates. Knowing leetcode shows you have the tenacity to do well and it's a way to solve something together with your interviewer. It's supposed to be collaborative, even at fang, but a lot of engineers who got their ticket during COVID (hot market) think of leetcode as a test and not a collaborative session.
At startups and smaller companies, leetcode doesn't make any sense. From what I've noticed, startups are having candidates do LLM generated take home assignments that they solve with ai assist to test reasoning. The good thing is that these problems are modeled after real world problems so you can actually learn a lot by using LLMs. On the other hand, you've just wasted 4 hours if they don't like your reasoning or you may have just done design work for free.
bowedcontainer2@reddit
If you were weren’t leetcoding in 2016 you were either not in a tech hub or the jobs must have been weird idk. I feel like that was a popular time for leetcode
GlobalCurry@reddit
I mostly worked at startups and small "boutique" development shops before 2020, many of them had the interview process where you met with the founder or maybe a couple of other engineers and talked about what you made previously, interests, etc. and maybe even hired on the spot based on that alone. I knew people back then who got jobs just for showing up at meetups. Now it seems like even the smallest startups want leetcode.
Even the larger companies I interviewed with back then mostly asked technical questions relevant to whatever language, framework, etc that they used and maybe some simple puzzle like fizzbuzz.
The only companies I encountered doing something like leetcode style questions were faang, specifically, Amazon.
bowedcontainer2@reddit
Interesting. In 2018 nearly every notable startup, mid, large company (my targets admittedly) all did some level of leetcoding. And if not it was like a take home style. Could be a function of application volume and strategy to thin the pool.
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
I was in college in 2018 and every company I’ve applied to for an internship either gave me a hackerrank assessment (LC equivalent) or a LC type technical interview. From startup to FAANG. As you said, it could be a matter of weeding out unqualified candidates from a large pool.
commonsearchterm@reddit
Yeah Cracking the coding interview was around already by then
Charming-Store8829@reddit
reminds me of my 2020 job hunt, much easier back then
anoncology@reddit
I have been looking since September and have had many interviews. Did you get any takehomes? I feel like I cannot get an offer no matter what...
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
The company that ghosted me gave me a take home; everything else was either a technical interview or a coding assessment. I was allowed to use AI to help me finish it. After completing it, we went over my code then moved into a technical deep dive where I went over a project that I worked on at my last job. I was told that I would be hearing back with next steps from the CEO, but never gotten anything back.
ToyDingo@reddit
Yeesh, my resume must be garbage then. 15 yoe, laid off in February. Applied to over 100 jobs so far, only 2 interviews. No offers :(
Congrats to you buddy
RustOnTheEdge@reddit
I don’t want to be a dick, but at some point you gotta ask yourself if YOE is a relevant metric here.
Whenever I interview someone older than 40, I always ask the what the biggest thing they had to unlearn. If they can’t come up with anything, or it is something super small like a keystroke combination that changed compared to some 20 year old out-of-service software, that is a red flag. They always tout YOE, they never know how to articulate how that is relevant.
EkoChamberKryptonite@reddit
Ahh lazy interviewing strikes again.
RustOnTheEdge@reddit
Lazy? Why lazy?
DurianDiscriminat3r@reddit
It doesn't showcase their experience at all. The answer is subjective for both parties. Plus, Experience is accumulated with both positives and negatives.
lord_braleigh@reddit
Ew. So you're saying that you discriminate based on age, by making people older than 40 produce random anecdotes on demand? The candidates who pass your random-ass questions are the ones who have interviewed a lot recently, and memorized pre-planned answers to your questions. Or... they're the candidates who are young, and who never get tossed an extra hoop that they're forced to jump through. This is all very bad and gross. Stop it.
If your filter is rejecting experienced people, consider that the filter might actually be the real problem.
Have you considered that the purpose of interviews is to hire people, rather than quiz them?
RustOnTheEdge@reddit
I do not discriminate, I base questions on a case by case basis, but there are certainly questions I ask in certain situations. The thing here is: somebody can have 10 YOE, and it says absolutely nothing about their capability. Only that they are around for longer.
In fact, they certainly had more opportunities to have relevant experiences than someone with less time in the market, but there is no guarantee that they had valuable experience. I much rather have someone who can articulate what they learned, than someone who thinks YOE is a metric on its own. At best, it’s a potential indicator, but typically just a red herring.
It certainly is not “give me random anecdotes on demand”, it’s gauging the ability to introspect and converse about it. I need team members that are able to share their learnings, not keeping it for themselves because of their inability to articulate the actual learning.
lord_braleigh@reddit
Two things can be true simultaneously:
RustOnTheEdge@reddit
Yeah maybe it’s a cultural thing. In the US, you hire for your needs now (the problem you need solved, as you say) because you can almost fire at will. In Europe, you can’t just let go of someone, so the commitment is much longer from the employer perspective. Being able to do the job you are required to do now is only one thing, but you kinda have to assess if the person interviewing will be able to grow with the organization. That is incredibly hard, because (1) you don’t know what the organization will require in the future and (2) there is no way to reliably measure the adaptability of the interviewee.
I am done talking to you now, you sound incredibly aggressive and I don’t care for it. You also sound like you have little experience in interviewing people, you seem to only provide your own perspective from an interviewee angle. Take care at OpenAI!
lord_braleigh@reddit
I don't think there's a huge cultural difference; US companies find it difficult to fire without risking wrongful termination. Instead, US companies lay off, where the headcount and possibly team are removed, rather than just the person.
I've conducted over a thousand interviews as an interviewer, mostly for a FAANG company. At this company I was not hiring for my team, I was more of a gatekeeper. My experiences as an interviewee inform how I need to treat others when, as the interviewer, I have a semblance of unearned authority.
aMonkeyRidingABadger@reddit
TBH I would probably fail on this question. I’ve never felt like I ever had to unlearn anything because skills and habits have slowly but consistently evolved over the years. If I ever had to consciously unlearn something, wouldn’t that imply I had stagnated for a long time?
I guess closest I could get here would be that I wasn’t quick to embrace AI, but plenty of people, and even entire companies, are still avoiding it, so I’m not sure this would even count.
RustOnTheEdge@reddit
Yeah it’s not a fail/pass question, don’t get me wrong. I get downvoted a lot because apparently this is unpopular, but when I do interviews, these are conversations and this is just a conversation starter. Knowledge acquisition is never linear, it always evolves. It’s why no two people are the same; hearing information alone (aside from the myriad of other ways to acquire insights) in different order will result in different mental models of people, which is great! It already is a great sign that you recognise that skills and habits just evolve, and are not granted through time nor provided through formal learning alone or anything.
JodoKaast@reddit
"Tell me about the things throughout your career that you've forgotten."
and other meaningless noise.
fruini@reddit
In my experience, high YoE combined with diverse experience strongly correlates with the ability to learn quickly, adapt easily, and filter what truly matters.
I’ve also noticed that engineers with 3–4 years of experience can sometimes be temporarily more resistant to change as they take their first 1-2 real life projects as the only way of doing things. Luckly most people I've worked with outgrow this.
RustOnTheEdge@reddit
I think the diverse experience part is key. Some are talented and create those experiences for themselves. A lot of people are not unfortunately.
And resistance to change is not correlated to age one bit, in my experience. Sometimes it actually comes from experience but the person is unable to articulate why, sometimes it’s just resistance. Interesting how that surfaces in the most unexpected ways.
ohtaninja@reddit
Use lots of catchy words in resume. X dollars, Y % improvements, etc.
You'll be surprised how many "lead" SWEs are there. Many of those "leads" couldn't explain the projects they led in depth, but at least got an interview
skidmark_zuckerberg@reddit
Seriously, it is likely your resume. There was a huge difference between in the formatting after I had a technical resume writer get ahold of mine. I got laid off 3/28 and by today, I have interviewed at 4 companies.
The ATS systems are really in overdrive right now. Also tailored cover letters are also fed into the ATS. Knowing this, everything has to be very AST friendly, and you have to match on enough keywords to get picked up. If your resume isn’t formatted correctly, it will not be parsed fully.
Just throwing this out there, don’t be discouraged. It’s likely nothing to do with you — it’s gaming the ATS.
Adre11111@reddit
Can you link the technical resume write you used?
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
I’m sorry to hear about your experience so far :(
I think that I’m really really lucky to have found a job this soon. Be kind to yourself, never give up and take breaks whenever you need to.
bowedcontainer2@reddit
Tc?
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
Roughly $223k
kolosok17@reddit
Which region?
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
SF bay area
Salt_Refrigerator385@reddit
Not to be that guy but isn’t this on the low end for SF at your YOE?
Salt_Refrigerator385@reddit
Not based in the bay area but at a similar job level in VHCOL. Right now I’m around 340k at a job I started last year. According to levels the median for 2-5 yoe is 244-275K. I assume there’s other factors beyond pay that make this role that appeal to OP.
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
Just to name a couple of reasons why I like this role:
Salt_Refrigerator385@reddit
Yeah makes sense. Lots of turmoil, peace of mind is worth a lot.
bowedcontainer2@reddit
What is your tc
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
My previous TC was ~$150k so this is a huge pay bump for me plus I’m happy with the company I’m joining. One of the main reasons for not leaving my previous job sooner was because it was fully remote.
Annual_Negotiation44@reddit
Is your new role fully remote?
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
No it’s 5 days in the office which I’m alright with given how short the commute is.
Atabik-sohaib321@reddit
Thanks for sharing the breakdown. This is a good reminder that ATS-friendly resume tailoring, applying to fresh postings, and honestly luck all matter a lot right now. I’ve been looking at this post that explains how ATS works, why it matters, and includes a sample resume template. I’m going to use it more seriously for my next applications, because I’m starting to think this might be one of the reasons I’ve been getting filtered out.
Fritoes@reddit
So much effort for it to come down to a job that someone referred you for speaks volumes to how frustrating the market is.
Spare_Entrepreneur61@reddit
How do you write so much applications? Is it just fire and forget? It takes me a few hour to write a suitable application and then I wait for the response before I look for something else to apply.
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
The most effort I would do for a job app would be tailoring my resume to the description using Claude then making edits when needed. Other than that I would submit my app then move on to the next. More likely my app will get tossed in the bin, but I still apply since you never know if you’ll get a chance. This method got me in 2 interview loops.
Aknottyman@reddit
Thanks for posting all of this. How did you find the roles to cold apply to?
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
(To preface, this post and comment are not ads for Jobright or any service. I'm only bringing it up because it's what I used during my job hunt)
I used Jobright which is a platform that uses AI to find job listings based on your resume & other information you give it when you sign up. It'll give you a list of jobs that are relevant to your background & experience.
That being said, it's not 100% accurate so I still had to parse through roles that weren't actually a match or roles that I wasn't interested in. On top of that, I also had to manually filter through companies & positions that I actually want to work in.
Out of the 68 cold apps, I was able to get into 2 interview loops (\~3% response rate). These didn't manifest into offers though. One company ghosted me after 2 interviews. The other I had to withdraw due to already receiving 2 other offers (as mentioned here).
Aknottyman@reddit
Ok thanks. What did you pay, and does it still feel worth it based on your whole experience?
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
I didn't pay at all for Jobright. They do have a premium plan and other services at a cost, but in my opinion they aren't worth it.
I did, however, buy 1 year of LC premium (during the black friday sale at a discount) and 1 month premium for HelloInterview (as well as a mock interview from them for system design). In my opinion, these were worth it.
The best part of LC premium is being able to access all problems & the editorials which do a deep dive into the solutions. NeetCode does a great job at his video solutions if you don't have LC premium, but the editorials take it one step further.
HelloInterview's 1 month premium allows access to their entire catalog, but I mainly used it to work on their guided practice problems for system design. The AI agent that you work with is a lot nicer than a real interviewer, but it's still a great tool for learning different components of a system and when/how to use them.
The mock interview was okay. The interviewer worked at a MAANG, and he gave me a lot of great advice. Although, I wished the problem statement was more relevant to the industry of the company I was interviewing for. He also treated the interview like it was for a senior role rather than mid-level which was what I was aiming for. I'd say the mock interview is worth it if you've gone through a good chunk of the guided practice problems and other articles. The only reason I did it early was to do last minute prep for my onsite.
Aknottyman@reddit
Awesome thanks a ton!!
casualPlayerThink@reddit
Quite impressive numbers (super low amount of applications), congrats! Hope you will have a nice time at the new place!
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
Thank you! I think I’m really lucky to have found a new job with the low amount of apps in a short amount of time.
Much_Airport9957@reddit
is this an ad?
mile-high-guy@reddit
It sounds like an ad for JobrRight
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
Sorry about that. To be clear, this post is not an ad for Jobright. I included it because I wanted to list the resource that I used for cold applying (I’ve seen other posts say that they’ve only used LinkedIn to apply for example).
The offers that I received were not because of Jobright either. One offer was from a recruiter who reached out to me on LinkedIn. The other offer, the one that I mentioned in my post, came from a referral from an old friend of mine.
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
No
Civil_Low_7450@reddit
seems like something my cat would do
Developer2022@reddit
I was laid off in January, sent 21 applications, got response from 15, rejected cold 4 times. Accepted 2 offers (one of then after 1 month was a mistake and I switched to the 2nd offer). 15yrs of experience. C++
dash_bro@reddit
You have good perseverance. Great job!
There's also a level of pragmatism I'd like people to adopt : yes, leetcode interviews are useless. But on the flip side, the money locked behind this puzzle rounds is significant enough in a LOT of cases where it's a no brainer to pick this (very learnable) skill up.
You can't decide who does away with leetcode interviews, but you can be good at it. Yes, it's pointless but the upside of the pay is usually worth it IMO.
But if a firm has LC interviews and shi**y comp in comparison, I'm likely not proceeding further
EkoChamberKryptonite@reddit
Pay isn't everything to everyone. What good is great pay but dog-eat-dog org practices and colleagues?
dash_bro@reddit
I understand that it's not everything, just offering a perspective
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
Thank you! And yes I 100% agree. I forgot to include this in my post, but the larger companies that I’ve done technical interviews with were still conducting LC interviews and these companies had much larger TC than the startups.
That is to say TC isn’t everything and not everyone wants to work at a large company, but this was something I was aiming for.
Jakabxmarci@reddit
How many of these interviews had leetcode-style problem-solving vs non-leetcode?
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
Of the 14 companies I’ve interviewed with, I’ve done at least 1 technical interview with 7 of them. Of these, 5 had non-LC while 2 were LC.
The 5 non-LC interviews were from startups. The 2 LC interviews were from large companies.
ctplusplus@reddit
I 100% agree with your point about Hellointerview being easier to parse than Grokking. I started with Grokking but switched over after a while, and I'm glad I did. (Still preparing with HI but I've made a ton of progress.)
I wonder if Grokking might be more useful as something to deepen knowledge once someone has gone through the full SD cycle with HelloInterview. Depends on how deeply you want to know this stuff vs. just calling it good after you've found a new job.
Congrats on your success!
No-Response3675@reddit
Congratulations! Thanks for sharing. This is my experience too recently, I am getting practical coding questions. Do you mind sharing how did you practice for these? I am able to get the core logic in place but not necessarily complete the problem as such. Thanks!
CantTouchTheseNuts@reddit (OP)
I think the only way to prep for practical coding questions would be to use the knowledge and experience you’ve gained at work or from side projects (maybe even LC if there’s some element of the solution you come up with being algorithmic). The pros of this is that you’re being evaluated on how you’d approach and solve a real world problem (which is the one of the main issues with LC style interviews), but with the cons of not being able to know exactly what to prep for beforehand.
jacwutang@reddit
Same. Struggling with the practical coding questions because its:
I find myself writing heavy code with string processing, list manipulation, etc.. quite a difference from normal LC
Bookso@reddit
Hey! Could I ask a few questions about your interview process? If so, can you send me a dm?
kk_red@reddit
And yet companies now expect you to solve "hard" within 30 mins.