How to secure a tech job in the current market.
My 3-step process to securing a tech job in these rough times.
The tech industry is doing bits. We been knew.
It’s become much harder to secure a job, the layoffs have been extreme and a lot of people are doubting whether to pursue a tech career in the first place.
I don’t think the market is as bad as people are making it out. It’s of course harder to navigate, but there’s still ways to stand out.
What I’m not going to do is state the common things:
Build multiple side projects
Apply to 1000s of places
Spam LinkedIn easy apply
Repeat
????
Profit?
Everyone says this and acts like the same strategies will apply when the game has clearly changed.
These won’t work anymore.
Here’s what I would do if I was planning to secure a tech job, in 3 clear steps.
1. Brand yourself
Companies aren’t looking to hire many people in their tech teams. They would rather have a few people with domain knowledge and good tech skills.
Targeting niche tech companies is a powerful strategy here. The numbers game doesn’t work very well. It doesn’t allow you to tailor your application to the company. If every application looks the same, why would a company choose you over someone else?
Being specific on where you want to work shows commitment and dedication, instead of just applying anywhere that will take you.
It may feel like you’re missing out on a large chunk of the market. But it’s actually more practical. You've got more to offer to a company where you have domain knowledge than one where you don’t.
Companies will take someone with domain knowledge and decent coding skills, over something with amazing coding skills but no domain knowledge.
If I was in the tech job market, I would focus only on music-based tech companies. My previous music experience + tech experience makes me a competitive candidate for these roles/
If I hasn’t convinced you already, this will - Everyone else is playing the numbers game. Doing the same thing as them isn’t going to get you better results.
Do you really want to have to send 100s of applications to get only one offer? Or would you rather apply to 5 dedicated places and receive a much higher percentage of offers?
Action step: Pair your tech experience with a domain, any domain that you know a bit about. Here’s some examples:
CS + Art
CS + Chemistry
CS + Finance
CS + History
CS + Drama
…
And so on.
Make sure your LinkedIn profile and CV reflects this too. It helps companies discover your niche.
2. Build a production project
Yes, yes I know I said I wouldn’t repeat existing tech advice. But the rationale behind building projects still rings true. It does need some updating though.
Many applicants have the same 3-4 projects that are often just tutorial projects. For ML, it’s a titanic or iris analysis. For SWE it’s a to-do list or a calculator application.
Tech companies aren’t fazed by this anymore. They have seen it all. You have to bring something bigger to the table. A well-built project, used by real-life people.
Having one really good project, will stand out more than 3 ok ones. Quality beats quantity here.
I would build a project for a specific use case. Perhaps it’s making a particular function run better, or it’s building an interface to a database that I want to work with.
It may not be a huge project, e.g. a Chrome extension or a plugin for a library. It just needs to be something that solves a small problem well. It doesn’t need to be fancy.
That said, it does need to be designed for usage by other people. Even if one of those people is yourself. That’s where building in public comes in. I would document the process and try to find target users.
I would also do the following:
Document how I built the application
Justify the tech stack decisions in the repo
Propose ways to further improve the implementation
Establish a strong testing and maintenance plan
Describe one way that financial aid would help the project
Thinking about these things positions you to be someone who can view the project holistically. Writing code is one thing, but what makes senior devs stand out is their ability to know what the bottlenecks are, and what needs to be focused on to meet business needs.
This helps you showcase your well-roundedness as a software engineer too. Writing documentation is an important part of the role.
These are things you can apply to any tech role. Just substitute the project for one that fits your domain e.g. ML, App dev etc. You could even decide to design a sales campaign for an existing project, supposing you wanted to enter the tech sales department.
Action step: Choose one problem to solve, and solve it in the simplest way possible.
Document your journey
Build in public
Build a strong repo of code
Cover testing, maintenance and future work
This feels like a lot of work. It is a lot of work. So don’t feel pressured if you can’t hit all of these. A good project will always have its flaws.
Pro tip: Try to link your project to your domain. This shows you can apply your domain knowledge into a practical solution.
3. Network online and offline
Networking is simply meeting people at scale. It’s being intentional about the people you interact with.
It’s NOT about talking to people only to get a job from them. People can tell if you only come to them to take.
Relationships are a two-way process.
I’m including it in the process of getting a job, because the skills you learn in networking matters in the job search and beyond.
Networking is a long game that snowballs, similar to SEO and inbound marketing. The first 2 steps in this guide matter more.
You can define how you want to approach networking:
If you prefer the online world, start on Twitter/X/Linkedin and engage in conversations around your domain.
If you’re better experienced in person, find tech conferences or summits and attend them.
I personally do a hybrid of these options. I find that online works well for discovery, whereas in person works better for developing relationships further.
I wouldn’t place so much effort in this being the main way you get a job. As mentioned before, people can tell. But also, it places too much expectation on something that’s meant to be fun to do.
As you navigate it, you will find a system that works for you. You don’t have to be constantly networking all the time, you can increase or decrease your investments here.
Action step: Choose your preferred mode for networking (online vs offline), and focus on building a strong identity there.
Start incorporating the other mode slowly.
Decide how much you want to network on either mode.
Enjoy the ride!
It’s worth noting…
Many people in the tech world make money from people desperate for tech jobs. They will sell you things that you can find online for free, things that won’t change your approach.
There’s nothing new under the sun. These people have, and will repeat the same tricks as if the market hasn’t changed.
My advice when reading posts like this, is to figure out whether the other person has skin in the game. Does the other people want to help you, or are you just a statistic to sell to?
I’ll be entering the research world soon. I’m not interested in lying about the reality of the tech industry. I’m mostly here to share how I would approach things in the hopes that it helps other people.
I don’t see many people sharing how important domain knowledge is in this field. Nor do I see a focus on building one good project over a wide range of ok ones. Networking definitely gets a lot of focus, but it’s not a deus ex machina. It is and will always be a long game.
I hope this helps you! Feel free to comment your own insights on how you approach the tech job search.
P.S. I’m very surprised I wrote a tech-heavy post for a change. I kinda just fell into it and here we are! I would change my hero welcome post again, but honestly I think this still fits into what I want The Techie Journal to be. It’s the main reason most people subscribed too. So let’s see where this goes.