Yeah that's a good question - i don't know, a few of the connections came from others students I knew or had projects with from my undergrad, had one old teacher that helped refer, a few people I had actually mentored and helped them find jobs in the past paid back the favor, then a few were "friends of friends" that I saw worked at desired companies so I asked our mutual friend to introduce us.

Oh yeah, like of the 9 that turned into actual interviews, 7 of them were from networking really.

Because the recruiter talks we're usually just a pre screen of 15-30 minutes, not something I really needed to prep for. Engineering interviews feel completely different to me.

I don't know, I could've convinced them to your point, I guess I just didn't take the "not a good fit" personally because it was just based on a non-technical person's opinion of my skills based solely on a short conversation. But yeah, you're right probably should've combined them haha

Sure! So I live in a non-coastal state so comp ratios can be a little different, but salary is 155k

Like I did apply to a few managerial positions because I'm completing my MBA this year - but honestly the market is pretty crazy and most of those auto-rejections we're at FAANG or other very established companies

They were mostly people from school and my MBA - but yeah I'm mostly just grateful to have a job now, it's crazy out there

So of the 9 companies I actually interviewed with, 2 of them came from recruiters talking to be on linked in. 6 of them were from me networking and the last was just a cold application.

Honestly out of those 9 companies I had interview rounds with, only one was a super established company, the others were pre-ipo companies

Most of them I heard back was due to networking and referrals

Yeah those are all interviews after the recruiter screen

You always have a chance!

I'm in my 30s too

A little better, not so many "leetcode" questions and a lot more higher level questions to test my understanding of full systems.