Stage 05
Apply & reach out
The 2-a-day cold DM system, warm intros, and the blog posts that make you look senior.
Cold DMs: the 2-a-day system and what to actually say
The 2-a-day cold DM cadence that produces remote interviews — who to message (HM > recruiter > peer), the 4-line opener that gets replies, and the follow-up rhythm that doesn't annoy.
Warm intros vs cold DMs
When a warm intro is worth waiting 2 weeks for vs when to skip the warm path and send a cold DM today — the reply-rate math, the relationship-cost rule, and the asking script.
Getting referrals when you don't know anyone
How to manufacture referrals from zero network — LinkedIn second-degree mining, alumni leverage, OSS-PR-to-referral path, and the give-first reciprocity that actually works.
Application strategy and cadence
How to spread 15 weekly applications across tiers, channels, and times — the day-of-week effect, the burst-vs-trickle decision, and the follow-up cadence that lifts response rates.
The 6 blog posts that make you look senior
The 6 blog post formats — debugging story, architecture decision, anti-pattern, before/after, primer, build-log — that signal senior engineering and convert recruiter visits to interviews.