Kenji Tanabe

Month eight: I turned down the 60% offer, started contracting, and here are the full numbers

A few people asked what happened with the 60% offer, so here's the update. The offer The company agreed to a 6-month compensation review, verbally. When the written offer came, the role had been "re-scoped" to mid-level, with a lower title and the same pay. I asked about it twice and got two different explanations. I declined. Several of you told me in that thread to take it, and it was good advice for the offer I…

Final round today. The interviewer was on his phone for about 20 of our 45 minutes. I designed a rate limiter for someone reading Slack. I said thank you at the end. I'm not sure who I was thanking. 🙃

Take the offer at 60% of my old salary, or keep looking? Honest input wanted.

Context for anyone who hasn't seen my earlier posts: senior backend engineer, laid off in February after nine years at a large tech company. The offer: senior engineer at a mid-size company. Base about 60% of my old base. Equity that rounds to nothing. Hybrid, 3 days a week, 50-minute commute each way. Pending: two other final loops, results expected in 2 to 4 weeks. No guarantees. Runway: severance runs out in…

Five months laid off. 431 applications. Here is the actual funnel.

I was laid off in February after nine years at a large tech company. I've kept a spreadsheet since day one, partly because I'm an engineer and partly because counting things is how I stay sane. People keep asking what the market actually looks like for a senior backend engineer right now, so here are the real numbers, February through July. The funnel Cold applications (career pages, job boards): 431. Any human…