Sourced software-engineer job hunts in New York City, San Francisco, and Austin: practice time, applications, rejections, interviews, and offers from first-person write-ups.
Explore career crashout stories: how long the change took, and whether they kept their job while switching.
Founder, Cartesian Tutor; ex-Databricks / Lilac AI→Staff-level engineer, Jane Street agents (NYC area)
Staff search after startup; prior ML/eng roles · ~2 months (Nov–Dec 2025) hunt · Career break
~15 companies, ~100 NYC-area conversations; Jane Street agents offer.
Hunt ~2 months
Companies ~15
Conversations ~100
Peak pace 4 interviews/day
Offer Jane Street, NYC area
Why they left
He closed Cartesian Tutor and wanted a staff AI role with strong culture and comp.
Why they moved
Recurse Center intros plus direct outreach; avoided blind third-party recruiter spam.
How they moved
Casual outreach mid-October 2025; full-time hunt from early November.
Lee wound down his startup in late 2025 and ran a staff-level AI search centered on NYC after Boston/remote options thinned. He wrote that ~15 companies and ~100 recruiter and interviewer conversations led to Jane Street agents in the NYC area, with a peak of about four interviews per day before Thanksgiving.
Outcome
Joined Jane Street on an agents team in the NYC area.
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Work life
Averaged four interviews per day in the 3.5 weeks before Thanksgiving 2025.
Obstacle
Most agent roles clustered in SF/Bay; NYC won on offers and family fit.
Transferable skill
Report ties the change to themes like NYC, Jane Street, staff.
Engineer, IBM (Texas)→Analyst / engineer, University of Texas at Austin
Engineer/analyst; IBM layoff Oct 2024 · 8 months (Oct 2024–May 2025) hunt · Career break
220 apps, 22 first interviews, 1 Austin offer at UT in 8 months.
Hunt 8 months
Applications 220
First interviews 22
Second rounds 7
Offers 1
Employer UT Austin
Why they left
IBM terminated his role in October 2024; he filed unemployment and kept weekly apply counts.
Why they moved
One master résumé plus tailored cover letters; AI mock interviews for rusty screens.
How they moved
LinkedIn/Indeed Easy Apply first month, then direct career pages and LinkedIn networking.
Leonard, writing as Lenwood from Texas, was laid off from IBM in October 2024 and hunted eight months before joining the University of Texas at Austin. He logged 220 applications, 22 first interviews, seven second rounds, and one offer, shifting off LinkedIn Easy Apply toward company sites and warm connections.
Outcome
Hired by the University of Texas at Austin in May 2025.
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Work life
Only one of 22 first interviews came from Easy Apply; most first screens were networked.
Obstacle
Thought he bombed the winning 30-minute screen; offer arrived anyway.
Transferable skill
Report ties the change to themes like Austin, UT Austin, layoff.
Engineer / eng leadership, Jam.dev (NYC after SF)→Staff software engineer, Ramp (NYC)
4 years at Jam.dev after Cloudflare · 3-month open-market search hunt · Career break
3-month NYC staff hunt after leaving SF; dozens of processes, Ramp staff offer.
Hunt 3 months
Paused processes 7+
Restart 3 onsites first week back
Offer Ramp staff, NYC
Why they left
Jam stayed remote while he wanted NYC office presence, later-stage stability, and different learnings after buying a condo.
Why they moved
Weekly LeetCode pairing, a written intro, LinkedIn inbound, and a qualifier: NYC hybrid, Series C+, fit, then comp.
How they moved
Sourced NYC-office roles in Apollo and ran recruiter screens before clustering onsites.
Roshan left Jam.dev after four years, having moved from San Francisco to New York. He ran a three-month staff search requiring NYC hybrid presence, paused more than seven live processes during a family emergency, then restarted with three onsites in the first week back and signed Ramp staff.
Outcome
Multiple strong offers; signed Staff Software Engineer at Ramp in New York.
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Work life
Spreadsheet then Notion pipeline; long park walks to protect energy across a renovation and travel shocks.
Obstacle
Paused 7+ processes for a family emergency abroad; one large org later stopped ingesting new NYC candidates.
Transferable skill
Report ties the change to themes like NYC, Ramp, staff.
15+ years; Brooklyn since 2015 · About 3 months (April until first offer) hunt · Career break
350+ applications and 85 companies in 3 months produced 3 NYC offers.
Hunt ~3 months
Hours/week 50–60
Applications 350+
Companies 85
Offers 3
Why they left
April 2023 job cuts ended his Salesforce Commerce Search EM seat.
Why they moved
He treated the hunt as a full-time job and used both direct applications and recruiter pipelines.
How they moved
Sent 350-plus applications, mixing career-page apply with recruiter-sourced roles.
Fellipe, based in Brooklyn, was cut from Salesforce in April 2023. He treated the hunt as a 50–60 hour week: more than 350 applications, conversations with 85 companies, and three offers. He took the senior frontend seat at Upgrade.
Outcome
Three offers; signed senior frontend at Upgrade in New York City.
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Work life
50–60 hours/week, sometimes more because the process followed him into sleep.
Obstacle
Hundreds of applications for three offers; he framed the US market as requiring volume.
Transferable skill
Report ties the change to themes like NYC, Brooklyn, Salesforce.
Internal Amazon transfer to NYC failed after layoffs; he needed a new seat before lease deadline.
Why they moved
15–20 LinkedIn apps each morning plus ~200 hours LeetCode course and Hello Interview system design.
How they moved
First interview Dec 2, 2025; locked in through Jan 16, 2026 with PTO for onsites.
Khan left Amazon in Seattle to relocate to New York City with a roommate deadline of March 16, 2026. He wrote that ~500 LinkedIn applications, 49 interviews in six weeks, and heavy LeetCode and system-design prep yielded four offers; he chose Airtable for NYC work-life balance over a higher-paying in-office startup.
Outcome
Four offers (YC startup, Series C, Brex, Airtable); joined Airtable ahead of NYC move.
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Work life
8–12 hours/day prep for ~3 weeks; often two interviews daily; cancelled social plans.
Obstacle
Amazon internal NYC transfer blocked; market expected AI proficiency and product sense on loops.
Transferable skill
Report ties the change to themes like NYC, Airtable, Brex.
Software engineer since 2017 · 2 months to offer (studied from Nov) hunt · Career break
150 apps and 88 hours produced five remote senior offers in two months.
Hunt 2 months
Hours 88
Applications 150
No response 80
Interviewing 30 companies
Interviews 65
Offers 5
Why they left
Rippling moved to five-day RTO; from NYC he wanted remote-first work.
Why they moved
Daily rotation of two timed LeetCode mediums, 1–2 system-design prompts, and ~40 minutes of behavioral out loud.
How they moved
Quit in January 2025 after studying from November; applied on official sites rather than inbound recruiters.
Greene quit Rippling over five-day RTO while based in New York and hunted remote senior roles. He sent 150 applications, reached 30 interview processes, failed 8, and took 5 offers after 65 interviews and 88 study/interview hours across two months. He found plenty of in-office NYC seats and few remote ones.
Outcome
Five offers; joined remote-first Vanta while staying in New York.
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Work life
88 hours interviewing/studying; often two interviews a day with mornings blocked for prep.
Obstacle
80 no-response, 32 no-interview, 8 interview fails; NYC in-office roles were plentiful, remote was not.
Transferable skill
Report ties the change to themes like NYC, remote, senior.
LinkedIn coffees with DigitalOcean, Cockroach, Oscar, Datadog, and Peloton engineers plus direct emails (~1/3 replied).
Zerwick moved to New York with almost no local network and hunted a backend DigitalOcean seat. He ran 2–3 LeetCode problems a day, Pramp 3–4 times a week, at least five applications plus five engineer outreaches on weekdays, more than a dozen coffee chats, and signed Software Engineer II at DigitalOcean’s NYC HQ after nine weeks.
Outcome
Accepted Software Engineer II at DigitalOcean’s New York headquarters.
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Work life
Mon–Thu apply/outreach/study; Fri–Sat take-home practice; cap of about 4 deep-work hours/day plus one full rest day.
Obstacle
Bootcamp-style CRUD portfolios were saturated; he had to ship SpaceCraft and present at meetups to get referrals.
Transferable skill
Report ties the change to themes like NYC, DigitalOcean, Launch School.
Software Engineer III, Google (NYC metro)→Forward Deployed Engineer, Notion (NYC metro)
Google SWE III; ex-Bloomberg · 2026 market test (duration not totaled) hunt · Career break
40+ NYC-area interviews in 2026; ~80% from LinkedIn InMail, not cold apply.
Interviews 40+
InMail share ~80%
City NYC metro
Year 2026
Next role Notion FDE
Why they left
He was evaluating 2026 options while still employed at Google in the NYC metro.
Why they moved
Optimized LinkedIn activity; recruiters found him; also used Wellfound, HiringCafe, Otta.
How they moved
Stayed active posting on LinkedIn so inbound recruiter mail dominated the funnel.
Gayle, based in the New York City area, tested the 2026 market while at Google and wrote that 40-plus interviews came mostly from LinkedIn InMail recruiter activity, not applications or cold outreach. He later joined Notion as a forward deployed engineer.
Outcome
Moved to Notion as Forward Deployed Engineer after the 2026 interview wave.
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Work life
LinkedIn Jobs only worked when he applied within 48 hours of posting.
Obstacle
Applications and cold outreach were a small slice versus recruiter InMail.
Transferable skill
Report ties the change to themes like NYC, Notion, Google.
Founder / Find AI (search started in NYC)→Software engineer, Chroma
8 weeks (Oct 28–Dec 16) hunt · Career break
90 interviews in 8 NYC weeks; 20 cover-letter cold apps produced zero screens.
Hunt 8 weeks
Interviews 90
Peak month 73 interviews
Cold cover letters 20+, 0 screens
Offer Chroma
Why they left
He left Find AI and wanted a deliberate startup IC seat instead of another network hire.
Why they moved
LeetCode in Python/Ruby after failing the first live-coding screen; later only that first assessment failed.
How they moved
Week 1 onsite at a desired unicorn; weeks 2–3 cold apply and referrals; week 4 started answering LinkedIn recruiters.
Thomas started the search in New York, open to onsite NY, SF, or remote. Front-door applications with 20-plus cover letters produced zero screens. Third-party recruiters then filled the calendar: 90 interviews in two months, a 73-interview peak month, five final-round super days in week eight, and a Chroma offer he accepted mid-loop.
Outcome
Multiple Series A-to-pre-IPO offers; accepted Chroma during a five-final-round super week.
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Work life
Week 6: 27 interviews; week 7: 30. Half of companies assigned a roughly one-day take-home.
Obstacle
First two dream processes failed from lack of practice; big-tech loops were quoted at 3–4 months.
Transferable skill
Report ties the change to themes like NYC, Chroma, recruiters.
Laid off early summer 2024; spent NYC summer on portfolio, then active search from September.
Why they moved
LeetCode company tags, system-design books, 2–3 mock interviews weekly at peak.
How they moved
60 apps by first onsite in October; heavier prep for January onsite that still failed.
Ombok, hunting from New York City after a 2024 layoff, wrote that a 10-month search totaled 400-plus applications, 152 rejections, 326 ghostings, and 30-plus interviews across 20 companies before landing a frontend seat at Distyl in March.
Outcome
Accepted frontend engineer at Distyl after March 2025 offer.
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Work life
Ten-month hunt with unemployment accountability and networking events.
Obstacle
326 ghostings; one failed loop after maximal holiday prep.
Transferable skill
Report ties the change to themes like NYC, Distyl, frontend.
He wanted DigitalOcean specifically after moving to NYC without a CS degree or referrals.
Why they moved
Ditched AngelList Easy Apply for career-page apps, unique résumés, recruiter email, and LinkedIn connects.
How they moved
Monday–Wednesday application blocks; later emailed recruiters a standing offer to accelerate silent processes.
Beatteay moved to New York City six months before hunting with no local network. He applied directly to 74 companies in eight weeks: 20 phone screens, 15 technicals, 8 onsites, and 7 offers (~27% response, ~10% offer rate). First offer at 5.5 weeks; the rest arrived in 2.5 weeks. He took DigitalOcean SWE II.
Outcome
Seven offers; signed Software Engineer II in DigitalOcean’s New York office.
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Work life
Eight-week full hunt; first offer at 5.5 weeks, six more in the next 2.5.
Obstacle
Easy Apply and aggregators were ignored; he only got traction after direct career-page apps.
Transferable skill
Report ties the change to themes like NYC, DigitalOcean, Launch School.