A Day in the Life of a Job-Hunting Software Engineer

I started paying for chat gbt 4 and I've been using it to rewrite all of my resumés and cover letters to tailor them to each specific company I apply to except when you know if you're a hiring manager and you're watching this then in that case I write them specifically personally just for you and whatever your company is so I'm filming my day in the life tomorrow haven't vlogged in a while so I'm pretty excited I'll see you then my next interview is next week with Tik Tok for engineering so I got to study here's the rough game plan for each day obviously I'll shift this around on days where I wake up late get distracted play a lot of Smash hang out with people and so on but here we [Music] go I'm on this new medication that makes me really drowsy in the morning so it's really hard to get out of bed on time but apparently that should wear off in a few weeks once I drink water get dressed get sunlight and make coffee I'm good to go I got laid off from my last job a few weeks ago and I've been handling it fine but I feel this mild level of restlessness and anxiety just constantly I started off just cold applying to jobs online and I lost count after like 110 applications so I thought I should probably ask for referrals but I was super nervous about telling people that I was job hunting and that I was unemployed eventually I got over it and I posted on my Instagram story a few times it was actually super helpful cuz a bunch of people reached out with referrals also I really don't like LinkedIn but a few of my friends say that it's really useful so I'm trying to get used to posting there too as you see right here I am making poor over coffee and I know this looks like a pretentious thing people do just for the aesthetic just for the video but I actually do this every morning I got these beans from counterculture and I watched James Hoffman tutorials on Brewing methods I don't really like studying the second I wake up I feel like I should though but I end up playing a few games of Chess here and there I feel like chess is a little bit healthier than actual gaming I've been stuck at like 1100 ELO but I'm getting really into it then we go straight into the system design studying this is what I need the most work on I never really learned this in school and I'm not too familiar with distributed systems at Large Scale in an interview they'll probably ask something open-ended like how would you design Instagram how would you design Snapchat how would you design WhatsApp I'm going over some basic concepts and patterns like how do you define your apis what kind of database do you use like MySQL no SQL how do you design the database schema how are you using sharding and load balancing and are you using local or distributed caching a tricky part for me is explaining what specific stack and Technologies am I using when am I using them and what are the tradeoffs like for caching when would I use something lightweight like mcash for Simplicity versus when would I use something more persistent like reddis for more complex data types my brain hurts now so I'll go make my bed as you can see I basically sleep on a mattress on the floor this is a shiky bhan which is basically a Japanese futon mattress and I put it on a tatami mat for extra cushioning back in college I strained my back and I couldn't use soft mattresses cuz it would compress my spine so I got used to sleeping on the floor sleeping on firm servfaces and it throws people off when I have people over but I'm like yo try it for like 2 seconds most people agree it's really comfortable I studied computer science back in college and I had a pretty strong resume cuz I did a bunch of top internships so my new grad offers were actually pretty good back in 2020 I think they were offering like 220 to 250,000 first year compensation I worked full-time for about a month but then I had some severe medical issues that forced me to to leave my job and then once things stabilized actually didn't go right back into Tech cuz I got some offers to work in media full-time making videos and that's something I always wanted to do so I spent 3 years making videos full-time and now I'm ready to go back into Tech But It's Tricky cuz I'm qualified for new grad level roles but I'm not technically a new grad since I didn't finish school recently that makes it kind of tricky but I think I'll apply to whatever rolles anyway I'll probably try to do one lead code problem before I go to the gym leak code is this website where you can do coding interview problems you can code it up on the site and then run it and submit it and see if it works these problems are pretty much just puzzles but the kicker here is that the puzzles are usually pretty hard to solve just in theory with logic even without coding and then you have to actually code [Music] it now I'm heading to the gym and I honestly pay way too much for a gym membership but of all things to splurge on I'm okay with this [Music] one I'll stop by Amazon go to pick up an energy drink and I think this puts me at like 300 mg of caffeine for the day sometimes when I'm really busy or I'm not doing so well working out will be one of the first things that I start skipping and I'm trying not to do that I've been pretty good about it for the past few months physique aside Fitness aside working out is a pretty important coping skill for my mental health I'm actually pretty happy with how my physique looks right now you would think that I'm kind of strong that my lifts are good but my lifts are actually not that impressive like I can only really bench my body [Music] weight I'm actually going to go back to Amazon go for my first meal it's kind of late for a first meal I'm not really fasting on purpose or anything I was just busy with filming but I guess I do really like eating a lot right before bed so it does make sense to to budget my calories and shift everything later in the day it's New York so obviously I go to a lot of restaurants and Deli just not today also got to watch YouTube while I [Music] eat so things are moving forward but in the meantime I do got to make money I do got to make rent so as you can see here I'm working on some videos I had a shoot recently with this really big hair product company they are a regular client of mine and they have this well-known hair stylist named Andrew so we all collaborate on doing these hair styling videos with a bunch of models and actors so I have like four short form videos I got to edit and I'm constantly looking for new gigs [Music] too you know what's super funny I do video professionally right so I have this monstrous cinema camera setup but I completely butcher it by turning it vertically and then shooting Tik toks and reals and then I compress all the footage so it is super infuriating to all of my filmmaker or my other videographer [Music] friends fitting in another Le code problem really quick I'm trying to make sure I'm not just stuck in my apartment alone all the time so I try to do something social most days of the week but if I'm going to Vlog I try to Vlog on days where I'm not hanging out with someone throwing a camera in their face is just really annoying just finishing one more problem then I am off to the grocery [Music] store Target's not the cheapest but it is raining and this is nearby for those leak code problems I really try to time myself maybe 40 or 45 minutes for the medium or hard difficulty ones and a big thing I learned is I got to make sure I have a concrete solution and I can explain it before I write a single line of code cuz if you think about it if you don't really know the solution and you just start coding you're not going to magically accidentally figure out the solution as you go right and also I feel like interviewers are more likely to help you out if they really get what you're trying to do all right it was raining pretty hard outside I'm going to have a quick snack and then I'll go to a Starbucks nearby I got a bag of quest protein chips and then a Chobani Greek yogurt flip cup also got this protein Pizza [Music] thing back to doing more problems I also learned if I hit like the 25 minute Mark and I have zero clue how to do the solution then I just look at hints I look at Solutions or I ask chat GPT cuz for some of these problems there's like a really specific technique or a really weird trick you just got to know like you either know it or you don't and if you don't know it you're just kind of screwed so I don't want to waste a lot of time I want to cover a lot of ground all right so I just did one Le code problem I thought I would get more done but that one was pretty hard I'll do more later but I do have a quick meeting with this really big YouTuber he's looking for someone to hire to help him with videos I don't know if I do that full-time but I'm always down for new projects after that I had another call this is not the YouTuber I mentioned this is just one of my other friends this is me trying to be frugal while I'm job hunting I feel like especially in New York if you're hanging out with someone or you're on a date it's always like let's get drinks let's get dinner and I don't really drink so that part's okay but dining really adds up and it gets kind of old like if I'm hanging out with you or we're on a date I don't want to just stare at you across a table and watch you eat now I say this but most of the time I have zero original ideas so yeah usually we just just get [Music] food I had dinner then I spent the rest of the evening just chilling I tried to go to bed at midnight but I couldn't fall asleep for a while so eventually I just got up and I have these ice cream sandwiches in my freezer and I killed like three of those and now it is 1:49 a.m. I'll probably just listen to standup comedy or something until I fall asleep yeah I got four leak code problems done one system design problem done I went to the gym I did some editing I had two calls I cook dinner and grocery stop so pretty good day subscribe like comment see you in the next one

Channel: Chris Jereza

Views: 7,541

Keywords: a day in the life, day in the life, techlead, joma, frying pan, tren black, chris jereza, christopher j, leetcode, neetcode, coding interviews, software engineer, software developer, developer, programmer, coder, coding

Id: 6zugTX8EsPs

Length: 10min 48sec (648 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 24 2024