I was recently asked to talk about my job hunting process.
The tactical version is easy enough to explain. I did not apply to every job under the sun. When possible, I applied directly through a company's career site rather than relying on LinkedIn. When companies asked additional screening questions, I treated those answers seriously, saved the strongest versions, and reused the parts that applied across future applications.
Those things helped, but they were not the biggest unlock.
The biggest unlock was narrative clarity. I had the experience. I had the scope. I had the stories. What I did not have, at least not clearly enough at the start, was a concise way to explain the shape of my career and the kind of engineering leader I had become. Once I started thinking about my career as a sequence of increasingly impactful progressions, everything changed.
This did not make the job search effortless, and I do not want to pretend there is a universal formula for a difficult market. Timing, network, company needs, and plain luck all play a role.
But the shift in narrative clarity changed the quality of the process. It helped me get out of the resume submission black hole, move into more meaningful conversations, and eventually evaluate more than one strong opportunity.
Turning a Career Path Into a Coherent Story
My career has not been a perfectly linear move from individual contributor to manager. I spent many years as a software engineer, moved into engineering management, briefly returned to individual contributor work after meeting the objectives of my team's charter, and then moved back into management with a clearer understanding of the kind of leader I wanted to be.
On paper, that path looked a little unusual. In conversation, it became one of the more useful parts of my story.
The IC years gave me technical depth. The first management chapter taught me how leadership is different from individual execution. The return to IC work gave me perspective, even though I initially struggled with it because I felt my leadership journey was still in its early stages. When I moved back into management, I did so with more maturity, more clarity, and less ego.
That path helped me explain something important about how I lead now. I am technically proficient enough to understand the work, but I do not see management hovering over implementation details. I use that technical depth to understand trade-offs, ask better questions, coach effectively, and create the conditions for teams to execute well.
The Story was the Product, not the Resume
One of the biggest shifts in my search was moving away from a resume full of responsibilities and towards a clearer leadership model. I started describing my work less as “managed a team” and more as building the operating systems around the team: how we hire, manage performance, deliver work, and create the conditions for consistent execution.
That language gave recruiters and hiring managers a clearer way to understand what I actually do. It also helped me avoid sounding like every other engineering manager's resume. Most engineering leadership resumes include themes such as: led a team, delivered projects, partnered cross-functionally, improved processes, and mentored engineers. While those things may all be true, they are not always memorable.
The more useful question became: what changed because I was there? That forced me to sharpen the stories behind the resume bullets and connect them to real operating impact.
The Two-Minute Narrative Mattered
I also developed a short version of my story to use early in recruiter and hiring manager conversations. The goal was not to recite my resume. It was to give people a fast, coherent mental model for my career.
I talked about my journey from software engineer to engineering manager, the lessons I learned during the transition, and how my leadership had matured into something more deliberate and operationally focused. That two-minute version became important because it gave interviews a stronger starting point. It helped me sound less reactive and more intentional, and it made it easier to connect individual stories back to a broader leadership philosophy.
Vulnerability Helped, But Only When Paired With Standards
I made a point of being honest about the parts of management that were hard for me early on. I was not a perfect new manager. Most people are not. I talked about the support I received from leaders and HR partners who gave me room to learn, make mistakes, recover, and grow. I think that mattered because it made the story more human.
But vulnerability by itself is not enough. Engineering management is not only about being supportive when things are going well. Good leaders still have to be good when things are not humming.
So I also made sure I had clear stories about coaching, raising expectations, managing performance, and making difficult calls when the bar was not being met. That combination seemed to resonate because humility without standards can sound soft, and standards without humility can sound brittle; an important balance.
AI-Native Execution Became the Differentiator
The stories that generated the most interest were those about AI, hiring, and engineering execution.
At my previous company, I revamped our hiring process to better screen for engineers who effectively used AI. Not as a crutch or a shortcut, but as a real part of how modern engineers can increase leverage, improve feedback loops, and move faster. That hiring work changed the team's talent density, and once the right people were on the team, possibilities opened up.
The team began using AI to materially improve how we worked, especially around automation, testing, and engineering workflow. Those stories were much more compelling than generic claims about “using AI” because they were connected to concrete operating impact. Hiring managers were not interested in AI theatre. They were interested in what changed, what became faster, what became easier to maintain, and what work became possible that had not been possible before.
These were the stories that moved conversations forward.
The Market Is Still Behind on AI
One of the things that surprised me most was how far behind many companies still are on AI adoption. Not just in buying tools. Many companies have tools. The gap is in changing how teams operate.
There is a big difference between “we have access to AI” and “AI has changed how we hire, build, test, review, support, and deliver software.” Many companies are still much closer to the first statement than to the second.
That was surprising, especially given that companies have the technical talent, budget, and organisational scale to move faster. It also made the AI-related parts of my story stand out more than I expected.
The Practical Application Lessons
A few practical things helped, too. I did not optimise for application volume. I applied to roles where there was a plausible fit, including some that would have stretched me professionally. When possible, I avoided one-click application flows and applied directly through the company’s career page.
For applications with additional questions, I treated them as opportunities to create a signal. Over time, I built a small library of strong answers that I could adapt instead of starting from scratch every time. That helped me move faster without compromising the application's quality.
But the tactical mechanics only worked because the underlying story became clearer.
The Real Lesson
The job search reminded me that experience alone is not enough. You have to help people understand the shape of your experience.
For me, that meant getting clear about the kind of leader I am and the operating impact I tend to have. I help teams raise the bar, use better systems, and ship more effectively without unnecessary drama.
That sounds simple, but getting to that level of clarity took work. However, once I got there, it paid dividends.
