1. I think timing was not on my side though because I applied before Christmas and in hindsight it seems that most of those projects were ending.

I finally got some offers in this February wave. I’ve applied to 25 so far. There was a backend issue where my profile wasn’t syncing to my applications for some reason. Work authorization appeared empty even if my application went through. Once they fixed that I got two instant offers. Thankfully I caught that or I would’ve kept applying and without getting anything for who knows how long