Techie lands 3 job offers in just 45 days after being laid off, shares his strategy
A software engineer who was laid off said he immediately rebuilt his routine around learning and applications. His Reddit post sparked discussion among tech workers on curiosity, communication skills and strong demand for AI roles.
Getting laid off alongside thousands of other employees could have easily turned into months of uncertainty. Instead, one software engineer says he treated it like a deadline to reinvent himself, and landed three job offers within 45 days.
The techie shared his experience in a Reddit post on r/developersIndia titled, "Got multiple offers within 45 days of being laid off. Here's what I did."
According to the post, he was among employees affected by layoffs at Oracle on March 31. Rather than dwelling on the setback, he wrote that he immediately shifted his focus towards preparing for his next opportunity.
"I was like cool, I have to lock in now," he wrote, explaining that he built a strict routine around interview preparation and skill development.
The Redditor said he spent three to four hours every day practising data structures and algorithms, primarily using NeetCode. At the same time, he dedicated another one to two hours daily to learning the basics of AI engineering from scratch, including concepts such as transformers and attention mechanisms.
He even used Claude to create a 30-day learning roadmap and followed it closely, eventually building two AI-related projects to showcase during interviews.
Alongside that, he also focused heavily on system design, spending roughly two hours a day studying material from Hello Interview, ByteByteGo and various Substack articles.
The engineer said he treated the job hunt itself like a full-time task. He updated his Naukri profile every day, marked himself as an immediate joiner and applied to 10-15 openings daily across company career pages, LinkedIn, Wellfound, Indeed and other platforms. According to him, company career portals proved most effective for applications, while Naukri helped recruiters discover his profile.
His efforts eventually paid off. He said around 20 recruiters reached out to him through LinkedIn, with several scheduled interviews. Between early and mid-May, he interviewed with seven companies, faced a few rejections, but ultimately secured three offers before accepting a role as an AI engineer.
Reflecting on the process, he credited curiosity as one of the biggest factors behind his success. The techie said he constantly consumed new information, often diving deep into technical concepts even when they were not immediately necessary, simply because he enjoyed learning.
Take a look at the post here:
The post gained attention from fellow professionals, many of whom related to the experience of navigating layoffs and job searches in the current market.
In the comments, some users argued that cracking interviews is not solely about technical expertise, suggesting that communication and interpersonal skills often play an equally important role.
Others observed that AI engineering remained one of the hottest areas in tech hiring, with companies rushing to recruit talent despite many candidates still learning the field themselves.
Several commenters also echoed the author's emphasis on curiosity, noting that information picked up from seemingly random articles, videos or side interests often ends up becoming surprisingly useful during interviews.
For many readers, the post led to discussions about how layoffs could feel like a major setback. A focused approach to learning, applying and interviewing could sometimes lead to opportunities that were not even on the horizon before.
Getting laid off alongside thousands of other employees could have easily turned into months of uncertainty. Instead, one software engineer says he treated it like a deadline to reinvent himself, and landed three job offers within 45 days.
The techie shared his experience in a Reddit post on r/developersIndia titled, "Got multiple offers within 45 days of being laid off. Here's what I did."
According to the post, he was among employees affected by layoffs at Oracle on March 31. Rather than dwelling on the setback, he wrote that he immediately shifted his focus towards preparing for his next opportunity.
"I was like cool, I have to lock in now," he wrote, explaining that he built a strict routine around interview preparation and skill development.
The Redditor said he spent three to four hours every day practising data structures and algorithms, primarily using NeetCode. At the same time, he dedicated another one to two hours daily to learning the basics of AI engineering from scratch, including concepts such as transformers and attention mechanisms.
He even used Claude to create a 30-day learning roadmap and followed it closely, eventually building two AI-related projects to showcase during interviews.
Alongside that, he also focused heavily on system design, spending roughly two hours a day studying material from Hello Interview, ByteByteGo and various Substack articles.
The engineer said he treated the job hunt itself like a full-time task. He updated his Naukri profile every day, marked himself as an immediate joiner and applied to 10-15 openings daily across company career pages, LinkedIn, Wellfound, Indeed and other platforms. According to him, company career portals proved most effective for applications, while Naukri helped recruiters discover his profile.
His efforts eventually paid off. He said around 20 recruiters reached out to him through LinkedIn, with several scheduled interviews. Between early and mid-May, he interviewed with seven companies, faced a few rejections, but ultimately secured three offers before accepting a role as an AI engineer.
Reflecting on the process, he credited curiosity as one of the biggest factors behind his success. The techie said he constantly consumed new information, often diving deep into technical concepts even when they were not immediately necessary, simply because he enjoyed learning.
Take a look at the post here:
The post gained attention from fellow professionals, many of whom related to the experience of navigating layoffs and job searches in the current market.
In the comments, some users argued that cracking interviews is not solely about technical expertise, suggesting that communication and interpersonal skills often play an equally important role.
Others observed that AI engineering remained one of the hottest areas in tech hiring, with companies rushing to recruit talent despite many candidates still learning the field themselves.
Several commenters also echoed the author's emphasis on curiosity, noting that information picked up from seemingly random articles, videos or side interests often ends up becoming surprisingly useful during interviews.
For many readers, the post led to discussions about how layoffs could feel like a major setback. A focused approach to learning, applying and interviewing could sometimes lead to opportunities that were not even on the horizon before.
