Laid Off Last Week - 3 paths at once?

Update on this, I blasted out 150 apps and got a handful of callbacks and I'm through to the coding round at Meta. Y'all are the best. thanks for the encouragement and strategy here. Leetcode time.

Also, to anyone reading this, the LinkedIn EasyApply button is wildly overpowered lmao.

Sorry to hear about the layoff and the added anxiety that comes with dwindling savings and supporting your family.

My first research paper ever was published at NeurIPS last year.

Congrats! This seems like such a huge advantage over almost all other AI candidates -- you have a paper published in the preeminent AI conference in the field!

I encourage you to focus on AI roles for 3 reasons:

• You have clear evidence that you're well-qualified for AI with the published paper.
• You likely have great experience already as a Staff Engineer (experienced candidates are always in demand in the market)
• You have tons of excitement about LLMs and the tech changes happening now

One nuance: with Big Tech (Meta/Google), I'd potentially be flexible about what role you take if they express a strong desire for that. Since it sounds like these companies are at the top of your list, optimize for getting in, and you can likely switch into an AI team eventually (or at least an AI-adjacent team).

Regardless of whether you get a Big Tech offer or not, I'm very confident you'd get some offer. Lots of startups would love to hire you, so don't split your attention by applying to eng manager roles.

• I'd encourage you to go through the course Ace Your Tech Interview And Get A Job As A Software Engineer.
• Also see this great discussion about going into AI: Thinking about my next move - Should I go into AI?

Sorry to hear about the layoff 😢. I just want to start off by saying that careers are long (I'm assuming you're not 60 years or something), so even if you don't end up in the role you want now, you can always pivot into it later. Given that you're a Staff Engineer/Engineering manager, I imagine a lot of your skills are transferable too, making pivoting easier (and given your level, people will have more trust in your ability to learn fast).

I agree with trying out all 3 paths. I would do the following:

1. Send 50 applications for AI/ML engineer positions
2. Send 50 applications for senior/staff web dev positions
3. Send 50 applications for EM positions

Digital ink is cheap, so if you really grind at it, you can easily do this in 1 week, max 2.

After you do this, see where you're finding traction and double down. This is why it's important to construct funnels and track your conversion rates as I talk about in my job searching course here: https://www.jointaro.com/course/ace-your-tech-interview-and-get-a-job-as-a-software-engineer/organizing-your-job-search/

So let's say your conversion rate for #1 (AI/ML) is 2 interviews (4%), for #2 (web) it's 10 interviews (20%), and for #3 (EM) it's 3 interviews (6%). In this case, it's obvious that to me given your constraint of needing something in 3 months to just drop #1 and #3 and go all-in on #2 (web dev). Studying for 3 different types of roles will almost certainly drive you crazy and lead to mediocre performances for each one.