Outline

Its been nearly two years since the last post. Feels like a lot of time has passed since the last time I made anything publically. Since last post I have met someone special, quit my last job, started an MBA. Now comes the dreadful time to get a new job in the states.

Thoughts

I was initially hopeful that the market would recover and I would be in the prime time when that would happen to grab new opportunities that arose from the recovery. But all of that was just wishful thinking. But the MBA experience has been interesting and although I spent way too much on it, more than it is worth in the current market. Finding a new job seems almost impossible becasue all the tech companies are firing people left and right and it seems that getting a PM job is insanely difficult.

On the bright side , I got a much needed rest and switch form the coporate setting. Was exposed to a lot of new learning. worked on some cool interesting projects that I would never have started with my own inititive. Met some interesting people, experience living the expensive NYC. Media seems to hype up the life in NYC a lot. Its definitely better in terms of making you feel welcome and poor at the same time. I guess I’ll be able to enjoy once I have a salary to support travelling and hobbies like I had when I was back in tokyo.

Well thinking ahead the market seems egregiosuly bad. The tech companies are still firing and there seems to be no hope of getting a job offer ahead of graduation. Seems like just in time recruiting is the only option left for all the MBA candidates who are interested in recruiting for tech. Although I see other classmates getting interviews most of them don’t seems to be for product manager roles.

I realized that on paper I seems to be more of an engineer than a product manager. And keeping my options open for recruiting for software engineer / engineering manager seems like a safer option. So here I am roped into beginning leetcode preparation for these roles. I realized that while working on building a recent startup or some websites , just how much I loved coding to get results. Seems like this leetcode prep will be a dreadful one. I remembered that the last time I actually seriously and consistently prepped for getting a job was more than five years ago. I also realize that there are a lot more resources available now especially with a lot of blog posts, youtube tutorials and even chatGPT help. I aim to solve atleast 3+ problems on average from now on. Made a public repository neetcode-ps to keep me accountable and have a reference for later on, as now I have no idea what problems I had solved before.

My goals for the next three months

  1. Begin job applications in the earnest from April 4th.
  2. Prioritize solving all the neetcode problems before mid april.
  3. Finish system design and PM interview course sections from tryexponent.
  4. Add more content to my portfolio site and also create more post regualarly here recording my learnings.