2026-05-18
Most people make job hunting more passive than it needs to be. They upload a resume, apply on Handshake, and wait for someone to choose them. That is backwards. Your job is to become useful, make proof, and put it in front of the right people.
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Join your uni's motorsports team. Ask to help your professors on research. Ask your computer systems professor to help you contribute to Linux. Contribute to the companies' OSS before asking them for a job. Run AI locally. Use Linux, tmux, nvim, and window managers (yes even on Mac).
Automate stuff you do regularly. Everything is automatable if you know how. The more you automate, the more you realize you can automate.
Use boot.dev and mathacademy.com. Learn the underlying systems. The goal is not to look employable. The goal is to be obviously useful.
Test out of English, math, science, and general education classes if you can. Do not spend four years slowly collecting permission slips. The time you save compounds into projects, writing, open source, internships, and relationships with people who can actually help you.
Get on X. Not politics X. Tech Twitter. Follow people building companies, hiring engineers, raising money, shipping products, and writing honestly about how the machine works. Reply with useful context. Post what you are learning. Make it easy for someone to see your taste and trajectory.
Move to SF if you can. I am on my way to applying this now. You can do a lot online, but being near ambitious people changes the default bar.
Just email people. The email can be short. It should have context, a specific ask, and enough proof that replying feels low-risk.
Template:
Subject: interested in [role/company/project] Hi [name], I saw [specific thing] and wanted to reach out directly. I am interested in helping with [specific work]. A bit of context about me: - [proof 1] - [proof 2] - [proof 3] I would love to be considered for anything where this background fits. Happy to send more details if useful. Best, [you]
Even shorter:
Hi [name], I know your time is valuable, so I will keep this short. - I have been building [thing] since [when]. - I have the most experience in [tools/domain]. - I want to help [company] with [specific thing]. Could I intern/help this summer? Thanks, [you]
If you are an international student, double major in business to utilize part-time CPT, but do not take extra classes if you can avoid them. Treat school as a constraint to route around, not the main game.
If you are a UC student, Handshake is not where it is at. Set your goals higher. Local startups are hiring. Go there and show them you are coachable. That is the primary thing that matters.
Prepare technical skills. Then research the company hard. Read every webpage available. Read their LinkedIn posts and X posts. Look up the person interviewing you.
This works because almost nobody does it. I once impressed an interviewer by asking why she changed from writing to recruiting/startup generalist. She was flabbergasted because I had done the homework.
That is the game. Be useful. Show proof. Find the people close to the work. Email them. Repeat.