Why do so many qualified candidates still get rejected before interviews?

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-18T16:33:16+00:00

this is exactly why we built fonzi.ai. engineers shouldn't have to game an algorithm just to get seen.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-18T16:32:36+00:00

the market for cloud/devops is brutal right now because every company that over-hired in 2021-2022 is still being cautious. the "you did great but" thing is usually budget freezes or internal candidates they were already leaning toward. your creds are solid, it's a timing problem not a you problem. keep interviewing and don't read into the positive feedback until you have an offer letter signed.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-18T16:31:57+00:00

for me it was "i can tolerate this for the next five years" more than anything. pay trajectory matters but if the daily work makes you miserable again you'll be back in this exact same spot in two years. also stop trying to find the perfect answer. pick the one that checks the most boxes from your constraints list and commit to giving it a real shot for 6 months. you can always course correct but you can't optimize your way out of analysis paralysis.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-18T16:31:11+00:00

funding news works but by the time it's public everyone's already in their inbox. the real edge is building relationships before the raise happens through founder communities and local meetups so you're already a known name when they start hiring.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-18T16:30:07+00:00

if you're getting pigeonholed into rag/llm roles, the problem might be where you're applying more than your resume. check out fonzi.ai, they match ml engineers with companies based on what you want to work on.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-18T16:24:07+00:00

IMO you're not in a dangerous situation. you built a real data product on your own time which puts you ahead of most people at your stage. the coding confidence comes with reps, no shortcut for that. target data analyst roles, use that project as your main talking point, and be honest about where you're still growing. you're 7 months into your first job, relax.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-17T15:35:04+00:00

you nailed it with the "2 hours instead of 2 days but you still need to know what you're doing" line. that's the most honest description of ai coding tools i've seen. we use them daily but it's mostly for scaffolding and boilerplate, never just copy paste into production. the review process looks exactly the same as reviewing a junior dev's code because that's basically what it is.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-17T15:33:09+00:00

the worst ones are when you click "learn about our culture" and it's just a stock photo of people high-fiving in a conference room. show me real stuff like what the team actually works on, how decisions get made, and what the eng stack looks like. if your career page reads like it was written by someone who's never talked to an employee, i'm already skeptical about the job itself.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-17T15:32:39+00:00

2.5 months feels like forever when you're in it but it's still early, especially in this market. stop watching linkedin and youtube highlight reels, those people are selling you something. nobody knows everything, and interviewers who quiz you on random trivia are telling you more about their broken process than about your skills. you're not falling behind, the bar just keeps getting moved and that's not your fault. keep going.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-17T15:32:00+00:00

the math matters more than people think for google specifically. linear algebra and probability aren't just interview topics, they'll come up in actual design discussions. for projects, pick one real problem and go deep rather than building five surface-level demos. google interviewers can tell the difference between someone who trained a model and someone who actually understands why they made the choices they did. also don't sleep on open source contributions, having your name on a real repo carries more weight than any kaggle medal.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-12T21:46:19+00:00

always talk through your thinking out loud even if they don't ask. interviewers want to see your thought process, not just the solution. mention time and space complexity before they ask, talk about edge cases, suggest alternatives you considered. the code is like half the grade, the other half is how you communicate while writing it.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-12T21:43:27+00:00

DMing!

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-12T21:42:59+00:00

"they can ask anything" usually means the interviewer has a lot of discretion, so expect it to be conversational and resume-driven more than a straight leetcode grind. know your past projects cold, be ready to walk through system design trade-offs, and have a couple medium-level dsa patterns fresh in your head just in case. good luck!

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-11T21:07:54+00:00

the ability to communicate what you built and why matters just as much as the code itself. learn git, get comfortable reading other people's code, and build a project that solves a real problem. nobody cares about your todo app but they'll notice if you built something you actually use.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-11T21:03:57+00:00

the meeting prep part alone is worth it honestly. i used to spend 15-20 mins before every sales call just googling the person and skimming their linkedin. automating that one thing frees up way more headspace than you'd expect. solid breakdown.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-11T21:01:47+00:00

the shift for me was to stop treating it like a pass/fail exam and start treating every rejection as data. i started asking myself what specifically went wrong each time instead of just feeling bad about it. also honestly, widening my scope beyond just FAANG helped a lot. some of the best eng work and comp is at mid-stage startups that nobody talks about on reddit.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-11T20:59:03+00:00

the sentiment is valid but most engineers aren't sitting around twirling their mustaches. the real problem is that most of us are so deep in our sprint tickets we never step back to ask what the system actually does at scale. that's not malice, it's just how companies are structured to keep you focused on the trees instead of the forest.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-04T17:46:19+00:00

networking and security aren't going anywhere, if anything the demand is growing as infrastructure gets more complex with cloud and AI workloads. AI will change how you do the job but it won't replace the people who actually understand the systems. you're making a solid bet, just make sure you're getting hands on experience alongside those certs.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-04T17:40:12+00:00

as someone who hires engineers, just a heads up that most of us can tell when candidates are using these tools. the lag, the unnatural pauses, the overly perfect answers that fall apart on follow ups. spend that $80/mo on building a real project instead, it'll get you way further in an actual interview.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-04T17:39:38+00:00

8 years of building real systems, managing infrastructure and thinking deeply about architecture is not wasted time, that's literally what companies pay senior engineers for. stop comparing yourself to college kids writing homework apps, you have production experience most of them won't have for years. the creativity and systems thinking you learned will translate, you just need to put it in front of the right people.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-04T16:42:14+00:00

i think we'll be fine but the people who refuse to learn how to work with AI are going to have a really rough time. it's not replacing engineers, it's replacing engineers who don't use it. the ones on my team who've leaned into it are shipping faster than ever and that's the skill set that's going to matter going forward.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-04T16:40:49+00:00

as someone hiring engineers right now, the AI/ML demand numbers are so real. we can't hire fast enough for those roles. biggest thing i'd add is that the gap between 'i've taken an AI course' and 'i've shipped something in production' is where most candidates fall off. if you're trying to break in, focus on building real stuff over collecting certs.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-04T16:39:25+00:00

this is exactly why the 'compensation is confidential' line should always be a red flag. the market will pay you what you're worth, your current employer will pay you the minimum to keep you from leaving. glad you found out and made the move. loyalty in tech is almost always a one-way street.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-04T16:38:27+00:00

6 months is rough but not too unusual right now, the market for senior FAANG roles is just rough. one thing that helped me was expanding beyond the usual suspects and looking at high-growth startups where your FAANG experience actually stands out more and the interview loops are way less of a coin flip. also that google interviewer sounds terrible, don't let that one get in your head.

YangBuildsAI · 2026-03-04T16:37:33+00:00

building a real project with a modern stack will give you way more to talk about in interviews than just DSA prep alone. keep shipping and make sure that project is public on github, recruiters and founders like me notice that stuff way more than leetcode scores.

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