Road map to SWE New Graduate (Intl)

[gusty anchor]

I found out about this server kinda late, but it's better than not doing anything. I'm making this thread to document my job search in the current market as an international student. The main goal is to keep me focus, to read back and re-analyze my plan carefully, and not to give up just yet.

**Current situation: **
I graduated in 12/2023 and the goal now is to look for a company can that sponsor my H1B visa. I'm currently working in a startup without sponsorship, but at least I can pause my unemployment time (I cannot be unemployed for more than 3 months). The company is helpful for me to gain little money to survive, but I don't have any mentors here to grow professionally as a developer, and this startup is not financially stable as I've been furloughed for a short time once before.

I have no backup plan as my master preparation is quite rushing, and I don't have any strong connection with the professors, so finding a job is my best bet right now to stay in the US. In the worst case scenario, I'll be kicked back to my home country, and I'm not sure what'd happen afterwards (probably I'd at least get to meet my family 😀)

Therefore, below is my plan to maneuver through the situation (I understand that I have a high chance of failure, but I have to try). People said that you'll need luck, skill, and network to find a job. I can only control the 2 latter.

Network
Tbh, I'm not good at this, and that's bad news. This is quite important considering this situation bc cold applying is quite hopeless. Most importantly, I'll need to review my pitching ability, gain more confidence, and inject some networking idea. The confidence can be gained through consistent behavioral interview practice. However, I'll need to expose myself to more people or a better environment. First, I'll need to review some Linkedin strategy for networking. Although this may not work as effectively, I'll need to find the right person and send the right message more frequently. Second, I'll need to find some careers fair or networking fair. Then, the practice I have for gaining confidence and making a pitch will be useful. Company preparation is important as well. Third, I'll need to get back to chat with more people (old friends, experienced people) to ask for experience and advice. This is quite necessary bc I keep delaying on connecting with old folks. Finally, I'll try finding attending some hackathons, although I feel like this is not too important.

Interview Prepare:
The key is consistency. I'll need to get back to LC more frequently as I used to. Behavioral practice as mentioned above is also important, but what's the point of talking to yourself while there's no one willing to hire you? I'm not sure, but I need consistency. So, LC is the first priority, then speaking practice, then comes system design gradually. I can start reading this source (https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer) and document what I learned if I have time.

Project:
At this stage, building more project is not that important. Yes, you can watch a tutorial about Kafka and write that in your resume, but recruiters might not believe that anymore. However, building project to sharpen my skill is necessary. Thus, I'll need to balance between 2 elements: my need and their need.
(+) Full-stack Notion clone
I've been developed and deployed this one. However, I don't want it to appear as a clone. And, I have a plan to extend this to solve a good problem. The current tech stack is Nextjs & React, which is good for full-stack position. I'm thinking about adding Golang and Neo4j. That's great, but it takes time, which I may not have. If not adding more sophisticated backend, I should have added my own features in roughly 2-3 weeks.
(+) Distributed key-value storage
I'm following this series (search MIT course) about building distributed system. The cool thing is that they have provided some lab instruction, and the final lab is to build a distributed key-value storage system. That could stand out in my resume, but I'm not sure how much considering the time spending. The cons is the time spending without profit bc they wouldn't value that skill in my level yet, but the pros is that I'll get to know some good concept (for system design) and build a cool project in Golang. This is more like an investment (no profit guarantee), and it might be an overkill in short term. So, the aim should be on building lab project, trying to customize it, and skip some sophisticated concept if necessary. The projected timeline is around 2 months.

Work:
Finally, as I mentioned above, I don't have any mentor in the current startup. That means I need to self-learn (which lead to inexperience and bad code), but I get to use whatever tech stack. I'll use the time here to learn as much as I can, and try to make some impact. However, it's hard as the product is not in use yet, and the finance is not looking good.