I interviewed for a dream position at a huge tech co a few years ago . I cold applied after seeing the job ad in the "who is hiring" on HN. That alone felt like a big step, I had never done one of those grueling long interviews people talk about, and someone reached back out. I studied, I practiced coding fast, I did mock interviews, but I was still nervous as hell to actually try one with real stakes.

I thought my resume was a perfect fit, an intersection of fairly niche technologies and skills that I actually had. I had to do multiple screening rounds, solve leetcode-esque problems.

I made it to the onsite! My nerves were going crazy but, the first coding problem, I went right to work, my fingers were flying, and by the end of it I could see that my interviewer was more than pleased. He said I finished early and we could just chat about life at BigCo.

The second round was similar, and the third round! Fourth round, not as great, but I didn't completely whiff on the question. And..........I got rejected.

I was in the dumps for months. Maybe I wasn't cut out for big tech. I'm not smart enough. I don't have impressive credentials. But eventually I said fuck it, I'm going again. I applied to a few more jobs and.....started getting offers at top tier companies.

The algorithmic thinking is hard, coding fast is hard, not letting my nerves get the best of me is hard, explaining my thought process took practice, but just having the resilience to go through the process after hard rejection was crucial.

I had a job at the time, and part of me really wanted to just give up and say I was content with my gig at a small company. But I didn't give up.

I hope I can pass on that trait to my son one day.