Jinyoung Oh, 23, recently secured a software engineering position after roughly twelve months of searching. He’s based in Seattle. The following has been condensed and clarified for readability.
I began my job hunt last September, prior to graduating in May.
When I entered college, I assumed landing a job would be straightforward, but by my sophomore and junior years, I recognized how fierce the competition was. By senior year, I questioned whether choosing computer science had been a mistake and thought, “I might be cooked.”
Since I’d already invested four years in this field, I decided to commit to at least one full year of dedicated recruiting.
Right after graduation, I had a final-round interview with a major tech company. For an entire week, I stayed home grinding LeetCode — a platform for practicing coding interview problems. I felt I’d answered most questions correctly during the interview, yet didn’t receive an offer. There was zero feedback.
That rejection crushed my motivation because I couldn’t gauge how much more preparation I needed or how brutal the market truly was. Companies weren’t responding. I tracked everything in a spreadsheet and submitted at least 300 applications monthly, often hearing back from zero or just one.
I doubled down on skill development
My brother also works in tech. During college, he insisted I practice over summers. So I solved problems whenever I could. During semesters, I was swamped but still aimed to complete a few problems each month.
Post-graduation, I felt pretty hopeless, yet I kept solving practice problems and building personal projects to sharpen my engineering abilities.
Initially, I relied heavily on AI, just prompting for solutions. But I wanted to ensure my actual coding skills met employer expectations, so for projects like a reminder app, I coded everything manually with minimal AI assistance.
My routine: wake up, breakfast, library for three to four hours of problem-solving. Then lunch, three to four hours on projects, then one to two hours applying. I prioritized building genuine skills over application volume. What’s the point of landing interviews if you can’t pass the technical rounds?
All that practice — pattern recognition, debugging — absolutely paid off when interviews finally came.
That dopamine hit
Solving a problem correctly gives you a rush. It proves the hard work is paying off and you can actually do this independently.
It also builds confidence for interview questions. Before intense practice, every interview triggered panic: “Oh my god, I don’t think I can solve this.” After hundreds of problems, I’d walk in confident. Because I’d prepared so thoroughly, nerves barely surfaced.
Recently, I got a referral at a software company. I aced the online technical test. The next round was a five-hour onsite with multiple interviewers. It was grueling, but I was locked in. I was ready. Then came the offer.
In college, I obsessed over grades and practice problems, missing out on fun. After graduating, I wondered: “Why am I so hopeless? Why no job? Was it all wasted time?” Now that I have the offer, every hour was worth it.
Have a job search story to share? Contact this reporter at tparadis@Themoneytimes.com.