By the end of 2019, I had failed enough interviews to become obsessive about figuring out what I was missing.
I had already learned one lesson from an earlier interview: I needed to prepare better. Then another rejection from a company I really wanted to join made the problem feel bigger. I could build software and make things work, but I did not always understand the engineering decisions behind what I was doing. Worse, I did not know where all the gaps were.
I kept applying anyway. There were more interviews after that. Some went further than others. I interviewed with companies like Agoda and a few others I barely remember in detail now. I did not write separate stories about most of them because they did not stay with me emotionally in the same way.
But together they were doing something to me. They were slowly killing the idea that I could keep throwing myself at interviews until I accidentally figured everything out.
I started wondering whether this was one of those times when trying harder by myself was not enough. Maybe I needed to ask someone who was already a few steps ahead.
Someone I Was Afraid to Bother
I have already written a whole series about my university robotics life, The Years I Built Robots. One of the seniors I knew from that world was Jonayet Hossain.
Jonayet was one of the founders of the Robotics Club of BRAC University and one of the pioneers behind BRACU Chondrobot, the rover team that represented BRAC University at NASA's Lunabotics Mining Competition. He was only several years ahead of me, but from where I stood at university, that still felt like a large distance.
I had barely spoken to him. I had seen him around, added him on Facebook, and mostly stayed quiet because I did not want to be the random junior bothering a senior for career advice.
Then I came across an opportunity at a software company where I knew he had worked. I wanted to ask him what I should focus on, but even writing the message felt uncomfortable. I kept thinking about whether I had a good enough reason to take up his time.
Eventually I sent it anyway.
The Help Was Simpler Than I Expected
Jonayet did not give me leaked interview questions or some secret shortcut. He helped me understand what kind of preparation mattered, what I should pay attention to, and how to think about the opportunity without making it bigger in my head than it needed to be.
One thing he kept telling me over the years was not to overthink every move. Early in your career, focus on learning.
That sounds simple now. At the time, it was exactly the kind of perspective I did not have. I had spent years learning by building things, breaking them, and figuring them out. I was used to treating not knowing something as a problem I should solve myself.
What I was starting to understand was that asking someone more experienced was also part of figuring things out.
It Did Not End With One Interview
The surprising part was that Jonayet's help did not stop after that conversation. He kept checking in. Sometimes I called him when I was confused. Sometimes he called me first.
Years later, when I was thinking about leaving a stable engineering environment for a startup, I was overthinking again. I had worked hard to reach a place where I could learn from strong engineers, and walking away from that felt wrong even though the new role could teach me different things.
Jonayet could see the risk too. He even anticipated that funding could become a problem. But his advice was still consistent: don't overthink it. At that stage of my career, I should focus more on what I could learn.
Later, when that startup did run into funding problems, he was still there while I thought through the next move. The same thing happened through other career transitions, and eventually when I was preparing to move to Dubai for Odoo Middle East.
By then the conversations were not only about interviews or code. He talked to me about office situations, career decisions, and even the difficulty of moving to a new country as an expat.
There was another advantage I understood only later. Jonayet was usually outside the situation I was asking him about. He had no team to defend, no manager to please, and no reason to convince me to stay or leave. Sometimes that distance was exactly what made his perspective useful.
I Did Not Need to Figure Out Everything Alone
Sending one message did not suddenly make me a better engineer. I still had to study, fail, work, and make my own decisions.
But something changed. For the first time, instead of trying to discover the whole road myself, I had asked someone a few steps ahead what he could see.
Jonayet eventually became much more than someone I asked about one interview. He became one of the people I could call when I needed perspective.
I almost did not send that first message because I was afraid of bothering him.
I am glad I did.