How's the hunt treating you?
Code all day, apply all evening, mock interview on weekends. The search has eaten the rest of my life and there is no salary for the search. Trying to give myself two guilt-free evenings a week. Recommend it.
Blocking two no-apply evenings a week saved my sanity. The search is a marathon, not a sprint.
The rejections stopped hurting, which sounds like progress but feels like going numb. Taking the weekend fully off the search. The numbness is a signal, not a strength.
The numbness is your brain protecting you. Rest is part of the strategy, not a break from it.
When the interview prep starts colonizing your sleep, something is off. Cutting to a fixed two problems a day and actually stopping. Quality over the guilt-driven grind.
No standup to join, no team asking how you are, no external structure. You slowly stop feeling like a professional at all. Made a daily routine just to feel like a person. It helps more than it should.
The invisibility is the part nobody warns you about. A routine is a lifeline. Hang in there.
The "quietly interviewing while employed" grind is its own special exhaustion. Lying about dentist appointments, coding at lunch, the constant low-grade guilt. Nobody sees this labor.
You've reached the Mariana Trench. That's everything for now.