Beyond the Code: From 770 Resumes to AMD & Apple

When I transferred out of the University of Toronto's Computer Science program, I was terrified. Giving up the "safe" prestige of a world-renowned institution meant diving headfirst into deep insecurity. Most people thought I was making a huge mistake. But I knew that as someone aiming to maximize my goals, I had to take calculated risks and make questionable choices to reclaim my trajectory.

I've always loved building stuff. My ultimate vision is simply to keep building things, but doing it in a relaxed and fun environment—having the geographic flexibility to take a meeting on a beach today and write code in a hot spring tomorrow. I knew that kind of extreme autonomy is reserved for the "irreplaceable." I needed undeniable proof of my competency to get there.

UofT was supposed to be my golden ticket. But while I was grinding through abstract math proofs, I saw upperclassmen turning hackathon projects into real startups. They taught me a crucial lesson: Start with the end in mind.

The Pivot: Re-evaluating the Market

When I looked at the Canadian job board and immigration policies through that "end-goal" lens, the math didn't add up. Even with years of solid tech experience, the rigid points-based system meant staying wasn't guaranteed.

The US market offered a significantly higher ceiling and far more maneuverability. However, the US has a strict rule for international students: you must complete two full semesters before you can legally work off-campus (CPT). I had to move fast.

I strategically transferred to Rutgers University. The goal wasn't to find an easier path, but to acquire high autonomy. The academic structure gave me the bandwidth I desperately needed to focus on market-driven, high-impact projects instead of just theoretical coursework.

The Catalyst for Confidence: Time Management

Navigating the US job market as an international student, while simultaneously stressing over Taiwan's mandatory military service and mapping out my academic strategy, was psychologically exhausting. I needed a way out of the overwhelm.

Hearing that Googlers were masters of productivity, I turned to the book Make Time (by ex-Googlers) and the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology. I learned a profound philosophy: The real difference-maker is just a small portion of your day.

I learned to protect my daily "Highlight" with laser focus and energy. The rest of the chores? I offloaded them into my GTD event-processing system. This allowed my mind to remain like still water—completely free from the anxiety of pending tasks. Getting used to this philosophy and thinking in this framework consistently became a major booster on my journey. It became my core source of confidence, giving me the mental clarity to execute my next moves.

My daily Make Time and GTD analog setup to protect my highlight and maintain sanity.

Breaking the Dead-End Loop & Proving Competency

Everyone faces the same dead-end loop: You need experience to get an internship, but you need an internship to get experience. I broke this cycle with a low-paying internship in Taiwan in 2024.

Despite the limited time, I proposed a short-term, achievable project and developed it rapidly. Because I built it from the ground up, I knew the code inside out. Ironically, this unglamorous groundwork was exactly what later amazed my hiring manager at AMD. They were highly impressed that I could "actually talk about my code"—down to the specific data structures and internal logic. I couldn't be stumped.

I realized that true confidence comes from doing your homework. I knew exactly what my skills were, how they could be applied, what I needed to learn next, and what I didn't know yet. There was nothing to hide, and in the AI era, this deep architectural understanding is an indispensable advantage. This shaped my entire approach to interviews:

"While everyone else in interviews was boasting about hypothetical project impact, I focused exclusively on demonstrating underlying technical competency and architectural maturity."

Strategic Resource Allocation

I expanded this momentum by taking unpaid US internships, joining Hackathons to observe and collaborate, and acting as a "Project Hacker" for the Enactus social entrepreneurship club.

Instead of building generic to-do apps, I leveraged existing resources. Business students had already spent months validating real-world problems and conducting market research; the demand was real. All I had to do was step in and provide the software architecture. This allowed me to put genuine, impactful engineering work on my resume with maximum efficiency.

Job-Board-Driven Learning & Audacity

Going into the 2025 US internship cycle, I already knew the reality would be brutal. As an international sophomore navigating a terrible market, the odds were completely against me. I submitted 770 applications, giving my absolute all to create as many opportunities for myself as possible, and was ultimately fortunate enough to secure two paid offers.

To some, that sub-1% success rate looks like failure. To me, it was a hyper-efficient data collection process. Because I hadn't locked into a specific niche yet, I applied broadly to learn broadly. Every Job Description (JD) helped me build a mental dependency graph of modern tech stacks. If I lacked a skill, I went and learned it. This was my "Job-Board-Driven Learning."

A snapshot of my raw data collection process—analyzing over 760 applications across Handshake and LinkedIn.

But I didn't just study in isolation. I crashed high-level industry conferences, often as the youngest person in the room. I wanted to know who these industry leaders were, what they wanted, and how they operated.

I realized that as long as I was polite and audacious enough not to fear being brushed off, people were incredibly generous. Mentors at these conferences gave me invaluable advice, and even helped me solve technical bottlenecks from my internships.

The Survival Algorithm

To navigate the chaos and maximize my learnings from the market, I formalized my approach into a three-step survival algorithm:

1. Resume Reverse-Engineering: I wrote my dream resume first, then worked backward to identify exactly what I needed to learn today to make it a reality.
2. Interview-Prompted Learning: I used actual technical interviews to expose my blind spots. When I failed a question, I followed up with high-intensity, AI-assisted self-study to permanently fill the gap.
3. Targeted Debugging: I stopped listening to generic internet advice. Guided by a quote I heard at a conference—"Find a mentor who is just one step ahead of you"—I exclusively sought debugging and career advice from industry professionals actively doing what I wanted to do.

The End is Just a Means

This self-authored syllabus guided me through the valley of 770 applications and helped me secure offers from AMD's Systems Infrastructure team and Apple's Developer Publications Platform team.

Universities—whether UofT or Rutgers—are just mechanisms. They do not automatically mint you as a "global software talent." While abandoning prestige was terrifying, understanding the rules of the game allowed me to maximize my chances of staying at the table.

I stopped waiting for the system to hand me credit, and took back the power to define my own value.

This path was unconventional, and I'm still iterating on it. Which part of this journey resonates or surprises you the most? Is it the reverse-engineering of 770 resumes, or the interview-prompted learning? Feel free to challenge my approach, or reach out if you want the specific tools I used to break down Job Descriptions.