Having seen this from both sides of the table: a great essay is a much better window into a candidate’s ability than any resume and most full interview packets.
Also, unlike resumes, senior people read them for fun and start outbound hiring conversations based on them.
Also, unlike resumes, senior people read them for fun and start outbound hiring conversations based on them.
And yes, though it might be counterintuitive, I think you can easily justify a hiring conversation with one essay. It generally suggests a deeper background understanding than the artifact itself.
I think this also goes for technical people and is a better use of time, hour per hour, than the oft-suggested “just Github your way to a career upgrade” path.
Past your first engineering job, most of the work is people and systems issues, not “Can I get this function to do X?”
Past your first engineering job, most of the work is people and systems issues, not “Can I get this function to do X?”
And engineers who can clearly explain systems tradeoffs, business implications, working in complicated orgs, etc, are in essentially unlimited demand.
