That said, I find myself on the market looking for a job as a senior engineer and have been completely stuck since I started job hunting a few months ago. I qualify for and am interested in a good number of the postings I have come across, but I feel completely disadvantaged by how little information the job postings confer.
I am especially overwhelmed by how all the big names have you apply for a particular position with a particular team, and worry about getting rejected applying for one team at company ABC when I should have applied for and might have had better success with a different position with another team at the same company. I'm also leery of silo culture and getting stuck in a team I don't mesh as well with at a company where switching teams isn't so easy.
Part of my problem is that I have an extremely diverse engineering background and a fairly expansive portfolio of projects and technologies. While there are techs and industries I would prefer not to work with, I see openings for osdev, web backend, distributed systems, cloud infra, various niche core engineering, etc. all of which speak to me at some level making it hard to choose.
As background, I'm in the USA and I've run my own successful tech business for the past 10 years, contributed continuously to various open source projects, and kept up to date with most of the latest tech. Due to recent changes in profitability and with my hand forced by familial issues that have incurred high and ongoing medical costs, I've made the decision to shut down the business and seek full-time (at least partially remote) employment instead.
I'm completely unsure of how to apply for multiple positions with multiple companies at the same time, but I don't see a better alternative than doing just that. I've held off applying anywhere because I don't know what's considered acceptable with regards to how long I can keep a company waiting before I give a commitment, while I want to make sure that I end up with a job that's if not pareto-optimal, I can at least stick to for a couple of years without much regret.
In summary, I have too many options and don't know how to proceed. Per-team positions make me leery even after I've found what qualifies as a good company to work for. I'm not sure what's the right strategy when it comes to applying to companies that says you can only apply to one or two teams in a six month period but have dozens of openings across as many teams available. I don't have a great network of peers at different companies that I can just ask about a position. My conscience would eat me alive if I left a job shortly after landing it. And as much as I hate for it to be a top concern, pay is, as explained, an important factor and job postings just don't give you any/a real idea of what the take-home would be, or how much room for negotiation there would be.
Good companies will redirect promising candidates to more appropriate positions if they didn't start in the right place. If they're not doing that, they're probably way too siloed for your preferences.
1. Have your peers or friends at different companies critique your resume. I went from an overly-wordy resume that barely fit on 2 pages to a resume that had concise and impactful wording with all my job experience on the first page. Also, if you are applying for very different positions, you might want to tailor your resume for each vertical.
2. Applying for multiple positions at multiple companies at the same time is fine. No one owes anyone anything, and if you or a company you are applying to is unable to wait for the other, then let the opportunity pass like ships in the night. Don't let FOMO lead to inaction.
3. If you are finding multiple options you are interested in, track it on a spreadsheet as to the application status and next steps. It's easy to get lost without some sort of system.
4. I found recruiter reply timeframes and rates to be pretty abysmal overall, especially if you are applying through job sites and not through referrals, so cast your net a little wider than your specific areas of experience, so that you have a steady stream of responses. You might find a good fit in an adjacent position, the recruiter might be able to make a recommendation for another opening in the company, or it could just be good interview practice. You can always trim it back if it gets too much.
5. Job hunting can become a full time job on its own. With multiple inquiries in flight and the slow response, it can get discouraging. Remember that it typically takes many months to find a position that's a good fit; it's a marathon, not a sprint.
I don't think there's a lot of time to predestinate though. If you're haven't heard, the entire tech hiring boom of the summer is coming crashing down
i really wish you got friends there you could ask for recommendations, they know you better and warm referrals from them are better too. they might have ideas on better-run companies that suits you well :)