How To Stand Out In An Insanely Competitive Tech Market (Ex-Amazon Principal Engineer)

[@ALifeEngineered]

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[@Marismaro]

What if you have no issues getting called back but keep getting rejected on the 2nd or 3rd rounds ? Sometimes ( perceived at least) even if I performed very well, I suppose it still could be the same issue as you describe here

[@youwantitigotit4621]

*I LITERALLY CHANGED MY NAME TO KUMAR AND PUT GOOGLE AS MY CURRENT JOB I INSTANTLY GOT INTERVIEWS AND NOW HAVE 2 JOB OFFERS. AMERICAN NAMES DO NOT HELP ME AT ALL.*

[@sunnyboi1221]

I feel like recruiters don’t want to recruit unemployed engineers, they cold call engineers with a job.

[@karthiksubramanian9267]

Real advice from Steve!! If you want any opportunity in the real world, being great at selling yourself will put you ahead I would also add that in the recruiter/referral optimization tip, I find that the following helps: 1. Leverage first degree connections because lower activation energy to ask for the referral. Plus you can remind the connection on how you worked together in the past 2. Keep a database of recruiters/interviewers youve talked to. If you need a job, you can already hit up those people for opportunities 3. When pitching yourself, always connect your past experiences to the company's values, mission, product. Remember if you want to influence someone, draw common ground and SHOW that your experience fits into what the company wants (ie: optimize on how the other party would benefit)

[@royk.9347]

I'm not even in the market for software engineering, but I found this video incredibly clear and useful. Thanks for putting out this gold mine for us Steve!!

[@toTheMuh]

My experience so far if you want to land a job as an engineer: build something that you care about. Dont build the next todo app, come up with your own idea. Ask yourself what piece of software would make your life - even if it is just a little bit - easier and build that stuff. Congrats! You just delivered value. Companys will always look out for people who deliver value.

[@H3110W0rd-j]

Listing a todo app in your portfolio is an indicator that someone blindly follows a trend".

[@codermccoderson]

I was listening to this audio only and for a minute there I thought Steve has a strange way of shortening the word candidate, “candy”

[@AndrewYang1]

candy dates

[@jackli1924]

Thank you so much. This video is informative and quite valuable. amazing!

[@hendrixroastudent6521]

Oh man! Thank you so much I was not aware of this, will apply this tips.

[@AnthonyRiceMusic]

This video was great thanks 🙏

[@fakewintertime]

I like the last point you made, actually shipping a product to understand user behaviors. I've been creating some websites in my spare time and I've learned a lot on tips to optimize loading speeds, getting better at coding, and pricing strategies. Can't say its been helpful with hearing back from job applications, but I'm definitely going to apply some of the strategies to my current role

[@tip278]

Thanks for the great video Steve! Love the very direct examples around 7minute mark. It is easily understandable even as a junior engineer, and good advice to rewatch every few years

[@hocky-ham324-zg8zc]

In other words regarding depth: spend even MORE of your free time on programming. Ideally, you shouldn't have a family or hobbies, and should be staring at your computer screen until your eyes bleed. Don't like it? Well no one said life is easy pal! Now quit complaining and continue doing your part to accelerate the rat race! I mean, you're not TRULY a software engineer until you know 7 programming languages, can narrate every step of a TCP packet's journey from start to finish, can implement a red/black tree from memory, can design Twitter, have 28 full-fledged side projects, and have a KZbin channel dedicated to programming... Duh!

[@sujit_webdev]

Rule 101: Don't trust content creators or at the minimum don't believe everything they said is true

[@martinlutherkingjr.5582]

I mean if you want work life balance just switch to a field that isn’t competitive

[@davixpixie243]

nope you shouldn't do it. cuz u never can. These type of depth isn't build in a single day and u wouldn't know

[@bigbigdog]

unforturnately having a unique linkedin profile isn't enough anymore.

[@mrbrownie1383]

has having a good looking linkedin profile ever actually mattered tho?

[@vedita8726]

Have been following your videos, and was able to crack some good offers at good companies soley following your interview advice. Thank you for making the amazing content Steve! :)

[@H3110W0rd-j]

On standing out from the crowd: A post-secondary student asked me which extra-curricular activities should they join to connect to the potential hiring managers. In particular, they were interested in knowing which hobbies that the managers are more likely to be involved in. I irked at the question because the interest to join an activity is not genuine, hence the in-person connection to the people may be artificial and may do the opposite from standing out. I replied to the student how I met my first boss in tech through a classical music ensemble but I've studied the field intensively for over a decade. I did not go out of my way to join the ensemble hoping for a job.

[@A2Fyise]

Thank you so much for giving your clear and amazing viewpoint on the topic. I will follow these for my upcoming job hunt.

[@TheCreatorsAttorney]

Love your videos and the studio is chef’s kiss. ❤

[@vladimirww2638]

Thank you. In my opinion, this is the most useful video I've seen in a while. Great!

[@ElevateCode]

Great video Steve! This is great advice right when I need it the most. Thanks!

[@777arc2]

Also, open source contributions or even leadership, especially on a project that's of value to the target company

[@helper7686]

A really good video. Thank you!

[@dothenew9027]

I think luck also plays an important part in your career. On another note.. how your hairs are still so black? Please do a video on how to stay stress free.

[@codermccoderson]

Terrible market, much needed video! I haven’t even watched this yet lol

[@keslauche1779]

I disagree on one take, diving deep into something that has just been released is not always a great idea. I have made that mistake many times in the past, from learning the latest blockchain tech and javascript frameworks. I think more junior engineers should dive deep into established technologies such as the great examples you mentioned: redis, k8s, sql etc... other then that, great video we don't deserve all this wisdom for free 😁

[@jscul]

I think it's far better to have an idea of what it's meant to accomplish so that you can wow your interviewer. You don't actually need to know how to implement it, just have a basic understanding of the problem it's meant to solve.

[@vyshnavramesh9305]

Starts at 6:25

[@cakei1580]

another day of invaluable lessons from a world-class engineer for free

[@slavaboichenko1811]

My new life motto - "be a blue m&m"

[@MykhayloS]

You need to pass that DSA interview

[@xaq_01_02]

This is the answer

[@johngfam]

I love this video, Steve. This is actual proper actionable advice, thank you! Excuse my cliché question, but if someone implements the advice you provided here but does not have a computer science degree, do you think they have a good chance of landing a desirable SWE role in today's market?

[@vyshnavramesh9305]

Having an entrepreneurial experience makes you stand out.

[@PaulSebastianM]

This is wrong or outdated. Most companies want you to know everything! Both highly specialised topics like you mentioned on Redis and Kubernetes, but also everything about everything around the full stack.

[@rickhallett4223]

Sure, spend a couple hundred hours going deep only for 99.9% of job posts to give absolutely no shits about your obsessive side quest. Do we have evidence that this actually works? I mean, sure, it will work for the company that need that expert, but those are the minority. This sounded initially positive, but could easily become another source of developer burnout and neurosis

[@Neonb88]

I wonder how much the specific technology with a specific application in a niche field (8:00) is distinguishing candidates Still, worth a try!!

[@ThisIsntmyrealnameGoogle]

Great video, all this boils down to is making an actual real world app people would use instead of "tutorial hell apps", this can cover depth (the more scalable and real-world ready you make your app for lots of users the more likely you are to deep dive into the tech stack), easier to leverage a network if you do not have actual work experience (you have some type of proof you know what you are doing aside from tutorials), and having an app that has real users and real money makes you stand out to recruiters.

[@Captaine_Crunche]

your title is mispelled, it says comptetive instead of "competitive"

[@xaq_01_02]

Sorry I think this video is out of touch with the current state of hiring in software engineering. In my experience getting an interview is not the bottleneck, the key is doing *better* at the technical interviews and behavioral interviews than every other person who applied for the position. With the sheer number of people on the job market, the threshold for passing has to be absurdly high in order to filter out candidates. Unfortunately, the way to differentiate yourself today is by learning (or memorizing) leetcode solutions, and practicing enough that you can perform them live within 30 minutes. It’s a charade, where the interviewer and interviewee both pretend as if you’re seeing a novel problem and solving it in real time, when really you’re either recalling the solution or re-conjuring it based on practicing similar problems. If you haven’t seen the problem or a similar one before the interview, your chances of beating someone who already knows the solution drop exponentially. It really is that simple, the candidate who can perform the best at the interview performance will get the job. This means learning (or memorizing) solutions to enough leetcode problems / system design challenges / behavioral scenarios that you increase your chances of getting lucky and being asked one of the solutions that you know well enough to demonstrate your ‘competency’ and ‘expertise’ in the on-site interviews. So let’s be real, how to stand out in an insanely competitive tech market: keep grinding leetcode

[@ALifeEngineered]

Disagree. The vast majority of people on my Discord aren't getting callbacks. If you can land an interview you are already an outlier.

[@Marismaro]

My experience is similar to the commenter’s, I’ve had very little trouble with callbacks , but also keeping in mind this is as a sr+ engineer. Going through referrals and recruiters is the way to get calls back after optimizing your resume enough, but after that it’s quite hard to gauge what makes you stand apart from the other candidates applying

[@xaq_01_02]

I think that’s fair, probably we are both right - I think it’s worth emphasizing that getting interviews is only the first step

[@jortor2932]

​@ALifeEngineered they are highschoolers dropshippers

[@rickdg]

Any comments on how someone like Kyle Simpson has trouble finding a job? Too deep? Not enough jobs for such an outlier?

[@sumairsingh8414]

20 year career? Sir you look 24😮. What is your age?

[@LiveType]

This is an exceptional video. They key point about doing something "different" hits loud and clear. To get hired now you need to do something nobody else in the candidate pool is doing (go all the way with it) and then effectively market that to the individuals who have sway over hiring. This will take you from a 0.1% hiring chance to an above 10% chance without doing 100x the effort. Maybe ~3-10x depending on your experience level. Similar to Mr. Beasts 1 million vs 10 million view video ideology by just spending another 50-100% more time perfecting the video.

[@markmacw]

Tip 1 seems pretty evergreen. Tip 2 is outdated for 2025 and a tremendous waste of time and mental energy, strong disagree. Tip 3 is a crap shoot and therefore worth a shot. Tip 4 is reasonable, and sort of an extension of tip 1. Just going deep on your projects. Overall, great video, but LinkedIn is a detriment, careful out there.

[@adityahpatel]

Optimizing on depth is a bad strategy. Going deep is ok, you shouldn't strive to go to mariana trench level depth. The ONLY resource you have is 16 hours of awake time. To spend a big portion of it going depth of something super deep, super niche is BAD strategy which automatically locks you out from roles where that niche thing is NOT required. Hyper optimization on depth as you laid out is plain bad. It can turn out to be a good strategy ONLY if the world needs that niche tech skill to that level of depth. Secondly, 100 others have done something should NOT be a deterrent for doing it if that thing is new for YOU.

[@valsh6181]

nerd