05 Job Hunt & Landing

What to do Produce a one-page CV optimised for technical-role ATS and human review. Top: name, location, davidbuckley.vercel.app, GitHub, LinkedIn. Then a three-line summary framed as an engineer. Then the five strongest portfolio projects with one-line outcomes. Education and prior roles below.

What counts as complete PDF exported, uploaded to the portfolio (restores the /cv.pdf route if desired), referenced from LinkedIn Featured and GitHub profile README.

What to do Update the LinkedIn profile for active job search. Headline becomes specific ("Junior Software / AI Engineer — shipping in public at davidbuckley.vercel.app"). Featured section updated with the three strongest projects. Open to Work enabled, visible to recruiters only. About section adjusted to lead with current skills rather than the transition narrative.

What counts as complete Profile verified in an incognito window against a pre-defined checklist.

What to do Create or rewrite the GitHub profile README (Dave-Buckley/Dave-Buckley repository, root README.md). Lead with the portfolio URL, two-line summary, three pinned repositories showing the strongest shipped work. Pinned repos order matches the Projects page on the portfolio.

What to do One long-form post explaining the reasons for the transition into engineering and what the portfolio demonstrates. Honest, professional tone. Linked from the About page and from LinkedIn. Serves as the answer when interviewers ask "why are you leaving teaching" so the conversation starts from the same baseline.

What to do Maintain a weekly cadence of at least ten substantive applications. Source: Otta, Wellfound, HN Who's Hiring, direct company careers pages. Each application includes a tailored short message and references the portfolio. Track applications in a private spreadsheet or database to enable follow-up.

What counts as complete Sustained ten-per-week pipeline for at least eight weeks. Spreadsheet or database showing application status, dates, and outcomes.

What to do Five personalised LinkedIn messages or emails per week to warm contacts — second-degree connections, engineers at target companies, referrals from the advocate network. Use the templates in content/linkedin-templates.md.

What counts as complete Sustained five-per-week for at least eight weeks, tracked in the same system as JOB-05.

What to do Complete at least three mock behavioural interviews (Pramp, Exponent free tier, or informal with the advocate contact). Complete at least three mock technical interviews covering DSA, system design basics, and an AI-specific technical discussion. Complete at least three take-home coding exercises published to the DSA repository or as separate projects.

What to do Either: accept and sign an offer for a junior software or AI engineering role, OR: publish a clear, reasoned decision to pursue a specific named MSc programme with stated acceptance status. Ambiguous outcomes do not satisfy this task — one of the two must be documented.

What to do During the active job-hunt window, expand the LinkedIn network by a further 30-50 UK hiring managers and engineers at shortlisted companies. This complements — does not replace — JOB-06 warm outreach. NET-06 is connection requests at scale; JOB-06 is specific messaged asks.

Use templates 3, 4, and 5 in content/linkedin-templates.md. Each request is still personalised and references specific public output; scale here refers to cadence, not generic bulk sends.

What not to worry about

• Acceptance rate declining at this volume. 25-40% is expected.
• Connecting with recruiters versus hiring managers. Both are useful; the roles work different filters.

What counts as complete Between 30 and 50 connection requests sent across the hunt window, tracked by template used and acceptance rate. The phase-end state is a LinkedIn network of 100-120 genuinely relevant UK tech and AI connections — the target first-order graph for mid-career portability.

Why this phase Network effects compound. Each additional relevant connection increases the likelihood that a role lands in the feed before it reaches a public posting, and the likelihood that warm outreach lands with someone who has seen the portfolio before the application does.

What to do Prepare a short, articulate talking point on the EU AI Act — what it regulates, which system risk categories apply to which kinds of AI products, and what the implications are for engineering practice. Demonstrates awareness of the regulatory environment that UK and EU-adjacent roles will care about.

What counts as complete A written one-pager on the portfolio (or a blog post) summarising the Act's key provisions for engineers, usable as interview prep.