How I Got My Job: Finding the Right Fit as a Lead Engineer – Ally Palanzi, Engineering Lead at Stitch Fix
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How I Got My Job: Finding the Right Fit as a Lead Engineer – Ally Palanzi, Engineering Lead at Stitch Fix
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In May of last year, before landing my current gig as a Lead Engineer at Stitch Fix, I started to think about looking for a new job. I’d been working in tech for about 7 years. I previously worked at Vox Media, from when it was tiny and startup-like, watching it grow to hundreds and thousands of employees. After 5 years there, I left and joined a small startup to work on HealthCare.Gov as a tech lead. I hadn’t fully committed to leaving that role, but the thought had crossed my mind. My shields were down. One Sunday while browsing the internet, I stumbled across a job posting that looked interesting, and applied. I got a reply a day later and had the first phone screen shortly after. Then, I panicked. It was happening faster than I expected and I knew I couldn’t only talk to one company. I immediately jumped in head first and began my job hunt.I spent about a month or so aggressively interviewing with anywhere that would talk to me, without much consideration for the products, people, or the work. I started to reach into my network to let people know I was looking and got referred to several places. I wasted a lot of time and energy by interviewing everywhere because I thought that I desperately needed to get out of my job. Hell, I almost accepted a job offer at a place that had numerous red flags because of it.At the end of June, I realized I was completely burnt out from the demands of my civic tech job and searching for a job without clear direction. I had spent the last year or so working hard in a stressful environment and was feeling the toll on my mental health. Additionally, the startup I was working at had just laid off nearly my entire team. I was fortunate to still have my job, but was so distressed about the whole situation I knew I couldn’t stay working there. I decided to put in my notice without accepting an offer first.I know that this action comes from a huge place of privilege. It was terrifying, but I knew I had some savings that I could fall back on for a couple of months if nothing turned up. I’ve spent years working on my Fuck Off Fund just for this. Giving my notice helped put a lot of stress behind me and clear my head so I could think about what I really wanted in my next role. Since my team knew I was leaving, I could begin searching in public. After the weight of my current role was lifted off my shoulders, I was able to take some time to truly think about what I wanted, and made a website that I shared on Twitter in order to get some new leads.After the influx of Twitter messages, the interviews picked up even more. While I was fortunate to have a decent amount of leads, only a handful of them were actually interesting or hit the bullet points on my website. I ended up interviewing with ten companies.



Thanks for taking the time to share you experience, Ally! A great reminder to always negotiate!"Negotiation requires us, especially women and minorities, to make sure we’re as strategic as possible to get what we’re worth." YES!



I am so proud of you and the way you shared your process (especially the note about the Fuck Off Fund) will help so many people in similar positions.



thank you!! <3
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read these next
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Designing the ideal sleep experience – Alexandra Zatarain, Co-Founder & VP of Brand & Marketing at Eight Sleep
Asking us to identify the next role we want limits us to the roles that we already know
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