Author: Nicholas Hart
Date:
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Reading time: 8-9
minutes
Tech Job Seeking in 2025
After 8 months and 90 applications I finally landed a job! I have never experienced a job market this tough during my whole career in software engineering–either as an individual contributor or manager. Anecdotally I see a lot of posts on LinkedIn about people struggling with the job market. I’ve never been out of work more than a month or so until now. It feels like this period in 2025 is different.
What’s different? Is it a realignment within tech spurred by AI and shortsighted tech CEOs chasing after more profit? Is it the fact that I’m over 50? Perhaps a bit of both. I don’t have all the answers, but I will share my data and offer some advice.
My Data
I submitted 90 job applications over eight months.
- 5 Director of Engineering
- 1 interview (via referral) – 20% interview rate
- 3 ghosted – 60% ghost rate
- 0 pending
- 25 Senior Engineering Manager
- 3 interviews (1 via recruiter, 1 via referral) – 12% interview rate
- 3 ghosted – 12% ghost rate
- 2 pending
- 37 Engineering Manager
- 9 interviews (1 via recruiter, 3 via referrals) – 24% interview rate
- 7 ghosted – 19% ghost rate
- 8 pending
- 2 Software Architect
- 1 interview – 50%
- 2 ghosted – 100% ghost rate
- 0 pending
- 11 Staff/Principal/Founding Engineer
- 0 interviews – 0% interview rate
- 5 ghosted – 45% ghost rate
- 5 pending
- 7 Senior Engineer
- 0 interviews – 0% interview rate
- 0 ghosted – 0% ghost rate
- 3 pending
- 3 Engineer
- 0 interviews – 0% interview rate
- 0 ghosted – 0% ghost rate
- 1 pending
(A note on the numbers above–I still have 19 applications that have received no response yet, but I haven’t moved to ghosted yet, so those ghost rates may still go up!)
In total, I landed 14 interviews from these 90 applications–a 16% conversion rate.
It definitely helped to have a referral, although the job I ended up getting came from outreach from a recruiter. One other promising opportunity which I withdrew from (after receiving the offer I accepted) also came from a recruiter. The difference between these opportunities and all the others were that the recruiters were engaged, transparent, communicative, responsive, and reliable.
One of the opportunities I was pretty excited about, but the recruiter took weeks to get back to me after completing a final round of interviews. They repeatedly promised dates by which they’d have news, and when those dates passed without communication I would follow up after several days and get put off another week. It was very frustrating and eventually led to a rejection when I let them know I had another offer.
A few opportunities had a significant “homework” aspect–a presentation to create and present, or a take-home coding project. I probably spent too much time on these projects–I never got to a final round of interviews for any of them.
One that stung was an Engineering Manager role at a Seattle startup whose mission I was really excited about. They wanted a very hands-on manager and had me do a coding test, which I bombed–not because I’m a lousy engineer, but because I’m not a seasoned React engineer–I still look things up and rely on examples. It also didn’t help that I was told the coding would be focused on Typescript–which I am much stronger at.
I was rejected out of hand by a recruiter for one role that I was referred for by a former employee. It seems they were looking for someone with 8 years of hands-on React engineering experience. I almost wrote a blog post about this one. React 8 years ago looks nothing like React today! Any talented engineer can pick up a new technology. Setting arbitrary requirements on experience means you’re going to miss out on smart, motivated, experienced talent. Their loss!
My New Job
The role I ended up accepting is a Senior Engineering Manager role–which was my prior title at Sonos. The comp ended up being pretty close too. One of the huge bonuses is that the role is 100% remote. I won’t waste several hours of my time each week commuting to an office. I’ve demonstrated the ability to successfully lead distributed and remote software teams and am excited I get to continue to do so. (Here’s me thumbing my nose at all the “return to office” deadenders who argue this is the only way to go.)
The astonishing thing about this job is that the recruiter found me and reached out. Their posting had escaped my job search. I’m still curious to know why they reached out to me among a sea of candidates. I have no illusions about being well known, but I like to think I have a reputation among those who know me as a manager who does right by his employees (I always had above-average engagement scores from my teams at Sonos). When I’m on-site for orientation I hope to ask the recruiter about why I stood out.
Apply Early and Often
I was more likely to get traction on an application if I applied within a few days of the role being posted. Recruiters are overwhelmed by bot applications and genuine candidates are getting lost in the system. When searching LinkedIn make sure you look for posts within the past week (at most). Create job searches for roles posted in the past 24 hours and set alerts–when a new role of interest drops prioritize it, don’t wait!
(Sorry I wish I had kept more data on the age of job postings that I applied to!)
Focus on quality over quantity. You might want to have a few slightly different resumes–especially for a manager or senior engineer who is capable of leading in more than one specialization. Re-read and tweak your resumes–you may figure out some ways to improve them over time. Over the months I evolved several versions of my resume: mobile engineering leader, full-stack engineering leader, and staff engineer/architect in mobile.
I made sure to craft a personal cover letter for each application. Over time I evolved this process as well, so that I had a standard template for a manager or staff engineer role–a couple of concise paragraphs that tell a story about my technical and leadership expertise. Then I’d write a custom intro paragraph that had some sort of hook that connects me to the company and the specific role. I might tweak the other standard paragraphs if there was a particular aspect of my experience worth emphasizing.
I aimed for 2-4 quality applications per week. If I couldn’t see myself connecting to the role in some way and write an intro paragraph for a cover letter, then I simply passed on it. There are certain toxic companies (including several of the FAANG) that I simply avoided–personal preference as well as disrespectful past interview experiences. Perhaps this also reflects upon my over 50 attitude–I’ve done jobs for a paycheck before and at this point in my life finding a meaningful opportunity is of critical importance to me.
Keep the applications going, even when you’re interviewing. You want to keep your pipeline full, even if you made it through the final round for your dream job. They might pick someone else, and when you need a paycheck you can’t afford a lull in the job search process.
Referrals Are Key
Work your network. Reach out to former colleagues, friends, and family and get those referrals in. It helps! I had the best luck getting an interview via connections that I knew well. Those 2nd degree connections, not so much. Be sure to connect with people you’ve worked with, and don’t just slide into their DMs with “hey remember me from 10 years ago when we occasionally were in the same meeting? Could you refer me please?” Put in some effort, re-establish the connection, find out how they’re doing–ask about the company and if they have any insight. Build genuine connections and referrals often follow naturally.
Sometimes the job posting on LinkedIn has a recruiter or hiring manager you can reach out to. I tried this a few times and never got a response, nor an interview. They’re probably inundated with requests. It probably doesn’t hurt your chances, but don’t toss some clearly AI-generated message their way, or a form letter with misspellings. I think the thing here is to come across as a real human, with some sort of connection to the role that will make them want to bother fishing your application out of the thousands in their system and give it a look.
Job Searching Over 50
I’m afraid I don’t have any data here, just anecdotes from LinkedIn (I sure see a lot of people talking about ageism), and my own experience. My best advice is:
- Remove work experience older than 20 years from your resume. Chances are it’s not relevant to what you’re doing today and it’s taking up valuable real estate.
- It’s ok to leave the graduation date off your education.
- Actively learn new technologies and practice your coding skills. It’ll help with your interview conversations and look good on your GitHub profile.
Keep Your Skills Fresh and Relevant
One of the things that kept me going was working on personal projects–many of which I made public. I have no idea whether this factored into getting hired or not, but if a recruiter or hiring manager bothered to look at my GitHub profile they would see that I am writing code and learning. Plus if anyone wanted to drill in to my projects they’d see well-organized code with tests and automation. This regular practice will also help in interview conversations and technical screenings.
Expect to be Ghosted
Kudos to the recruiters who took the time to reach out with a personal message. I know you’re swamped! When I get a personal response, that is a company I will want to re-apply to someday. It’s nice even to get the automated rejections so I can cross one off my list. Applications that linger in limbo with no response are frustrating, but the reality is that many of one’s applications will never get an acknowledgement beyond the initial automated “thanks for your application” email. If it has been more than 4 weeks with no contact I move an application to the “ghosted” pile and move on.
Keep Your Chin Up
This process is demoralizing, frustrating, and filled with disappointment.
- That role you thought you were perfect for and got an automated rejection…
- The interview loop you thought you nailed but they’re moving forward with other candidates…
- The recruiter you had a promising conversation with and never heard from again…
I see a lot of people posting a lot of negativity on LinkedIn about how broken the hiring process is, how frustrated they are, how unfair it all is. I see the recruiters who are frustrated and overwhelmed too. The thing is, I don’t think posting negativity is going to help you in the long run. I do enjoy reading some of the more creative and humorous posts about how rough the job search is, and I hope it works out for them!
If you’re an engineer my advice is to keep busy, show off what you’re building, put a positive spin on your public posts, and find some friends and family with whom you can commiserate with privately.
This is all my own data, personal experiences, observations, and advice. I hope others find it helpful. Your mileage may vary.
About the Author
Nicholas Hart is a software engineer and technical writer passionate about sharing knowledge and helping others learn. You can find more of my work at:
- Website: nickhart.com
- GitHub: github.com/nickhart
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/seanickhart