Jay Shah

Last month, 50 engineers received $23.6M worth of interview requests in just 48 hours. Here’s how: Instead of applying through endless portals, they joined Fonzi Match Day — a structured 2-day hiring sprint built for AI roles. Candidates apply once, get vetted, and if accepted, are matched with a personal recruiter. Companies see only curated, relevant engineers. Interviews kick off with salary transparency upfront — before the first call. The result? 78% of candidates got interview requests. 81% accepted them. Companies ranged from seed-stage YC startups to Series D unicorns backed by a16z, Sequoia, and Lightspeed. This month, 77 engineers — from Meta, Google, Amazon, Salesforce, Spotify, and more — are in the pool. Hiring doesn’t have to be broken. This is what it looks like when it works. Link - https://fonzi.ai/ tech AI software engineering data work life job career internship role #tech #cs #Interview #Internship #Job #JobSearch #JobHelp #Resume #Linkedin #Bigtech #coding #programmer

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At 3 AM on a Wednesday, Amazon needed me. I wasn’t even on that team anymore. Back when I was an SDE at Amazon, a Sev-2 had hit one of our services. Many customers were impacted. The team had been chasing it for hours. Still, they called me. I rolled out of bed, opened my laptop, and joined the bridge. The tricky part was that the fault started a week earlier. A code change had shipped behind a flag, traffic ramped slowly, and the failure signature was noisy. Logs were chatty in all the wrong places and silent where we needed them most.Dashboards showed errors, but no clear line to the root. We did unglamorous things. We wrote a minute-by-minute timeline. We diffed deployments, configs, and flags across regions. We checked queue backlogs and retry storms. We sampled logs with new filters. We bisected the traffic ramp. We rolled back the smallest safe thing first. Then we added one log, in one hot path, and the picture snapped into focus. By sunrise, we had the root cause and a fix. The impact was contained. Customers recovered. What stayed with me was not the fix. It was why they called. They did not call because I am smarter. They called because, over months, I had done the boring work. I wrote runbooks when no one asked. I paired with juniors on their first on-call. I shared context so others could make decisions without me. I showed up when it was not my ticket. Trust is not built in one night. It is built in all the small days that come before it. Ownership is simple. If it affects your customer, it is your problem. Org charts are for payroll, not for 3 AM. If you are early in your career, remember this: → Document the weird corners when you discover them. → Add one useful log where it hurts, not twenty where it is easy. → Keep a living checklist for rollback, not a static wiki page. → Teach one person the thing you just learned. → Read your dashboards when things are calm, not only when they are red. At 3 AM, you will not rise to the occasion. You will fall to the level of your habits. Build the right ones while the house is quiet. That’s how you earn trust that lasts beyond teams and ownership that outlives org charts. A few days later, this moment turned into an accolade from the team..  a reminder that trust is built long before it’s tested :)

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Dreaming of Amazon, Google, or any other PBC Offer? These interviews aren’t about chance, they’re about proving you can think, build, and scale like an engineer who belongs in the room. If you want to prepare as per current industry standards, start here- https://bit.ly/4mfeCsk Most interview problems are designed to break your patterns and test your logic. Understand the uncomfortable truth: → If you can’t handle Graphs, Trees, or DP, you won’t even clear the first gate. Most interview problems are designed to break your patterns and test your logic. → Don’t assume system design is “only for seniors.” At SDE-1/2, you’ll still be asked how you’d scale, where to cache, and how to model a DB. Fail here, and you’re out. → Core CS – OS, DBMS, Networks. Ignore them and you’ll regret it when you’re blank in the interview. → Real Dev Skills – Know your language like your life depends on it. Build projects that aren’t “to-do apps” but things that could actually break in production. Now, remember, even the best-prepared engineers get rejected. I’ve seen brilliant devs fail multiple times before making it. But your consistency and resilience will help you reach your goal. Talk to people who made the switch. Platforms like Tutort Academy provide guidance from expert SDEs—a difference that can take your prep from good to offer-ready. So far, they’ve helped 2,150+ professionals switch careers and land their dream roles with lucrative offers. Because at the end of the day, it’s you, your grind, and your choices. #careerswitch #techinterview #dreamcompany #google #tutortacademy

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Mark Zuckerberg just made a $1 billion dollar job offer to an engineer named Andrew Tulloch and was rejected. So who is Andrew? Andrew is a brilliant engineer who's worked at Meta before. After giving the company 11+ years of his career, he became a Distinguished Engineer [E9]. This is an insane accomplishment already. <100 people have ever become Meta E9, and the average E9 makes $2,500,000+ per year. However, Andrew is now at Thinking Machines, a leading AI startup founded by the ex-CTO of OpenAI Mira Murati, valued at $12 billion. Like many, Andrew has realized that if you genuinely want to change the world, you can't work for FAANG and its bloated bureaucracies and politics. Meta is an amazingly well-run company (just look at the stock price), but it's undeniable that its innovation muscle is long gone. Over the past 10+ years, most of its "new" ideas have been acquisitions or copy-pastes of competitors. Meta AI is mostly associated with slop. If you want to build the future of AI, the path is obvious - Work for a startup. You can get personally matched up with opportunities at top AI companies like OpenAI and xAI here: https://lnkd.in/g4Prv7jp #techcareergrowth #softwareengineering #growthtips #startups #faang #ai #meta

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LinkedIn says I’m a Software Engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS) but it doesn't show the journey or growth it took to get here. Breaking into tech wasn't easy, even with a CS degree. As the first in my family to go to university and enter the corporate world, I had to learn a lot through experience. After graduating, I was rejected from every software engineering role I applied to. If you’re a new grad or just starting out, here are 5 tips that helped me: 1) Find mentors inside and outside work. Different perspectives can guide you through challenges and growth. Don’t hesitate to ask for advice, most people want to help. 2) Surround yourself with people who share your passion and goals, these connections will keep you motivated and accountable. (Join a tech community if you haven’t already). 3) Keep coding as much as you can. Your skills are your greatest asset. Build, experiment and stay curious.  4) Be patient and stay consistent. Set goals for yourself, commit to them, and keep pushing forward. When you feel stuck, ask for help. 5) It’s okay not to have it all figured out right away. Everyone’s journey looks different, and every experience counts. Bonus tip: Never give up. Rejections are part of the process. Learn from them, adapt and use these learnings to take things to the next level. If you’re just starting out or feeling unsure, feel free reach out. I’m happy to connect, share resources, or chat about your journey. #softwareeengineering #careers #resilience #socialmobility

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Why you should not connect with me, a Software Engineer at Amazon In the past few weeks, I’ve had hundreds of new connection requests. I’m always happy to connect, but I’ve noticed many are hoping I can give them a job referral. I completely understand the urge, but here’s why I can’t really help in that way: 1. Referrals are based on trust. If I don’t know you personally, I can’t vouch for you. If I referred everyone who asked, it would mean the same as referring no one. 2. I’m not a manager. I don’t participate in headcount reviews and I don’t know which teams are hiring. If you want visibility into openings, managers are the right audience. Where I can help is here: 1. Sharing my perspective on the job market and how AI is changing it 2. Providing pointers on interview readiness 3. Exchanging ideas on tech, careers, and growth It’s like how we prepare reviews at Amazon: a principal engineer review looks very different from a leadership review. You tailor the content to the audience. Networking works the same way. So no, it doesn’t annoy me when people ask for referrals. I just don’t want you to be disappointed. Know your audience, and ask for the kind of help they can genuinely give. If that kind of conversation sounds valuable, I’d be more than happy to connect! --- Hello, I’m Charles, and I am committed to share my two cents on career-related topics for 100 consecutive days. In these uncertain times, I hope to support those facing layoffs or career challenges. Follow me, and let's navigate this together! (40/100) #JobSearch #Networking #CareerAdvice #TechCareers

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