J253

I’m a US-based senior software engineer with almost 15 years of experience. Graduated from a top 50 uni in the states. I have worked mostly for smaller companies because I prefer the autonomy and outsized impact you can have—so no FAANG-like companies on the resume but I have cofounded a startup and had a successful exit. I’m not a job hopper by any means—spent over a decade with one company. However, by choice I have zero online presence. No LinkedIn, no Facebook, no X, not even a public GitHub repo. I have plenty of stuff in a private repo that mostly contains foundations for a handful of other half-baked startup ideas. Nothing I’d be willing to share for job search purposes because it’s just brain dump-type code and some POC stuff.

I’m not necessarily job searching, but I’m casually looking and have applied for a half dozen or so specific positions that I’m really interested in and based on the job description, would be a great fit for. I tailor my resume to each position and write a well thought out cover letter for each one. On paper, everything looks like a great match and at the very least I’d expect a first-call screening from each one. However, I’ve received only generic “thanks for applying” rejection letters without even a first call. I haven’t applied for jobs in quite a long time so I’m wondering if my lack of online presence (especially my inability to supply public code examples as part of the application) is sending my resume straight to the bin.

My question is: how important is that kind of stuff these days? Is an application without a bunch of links to example code dead on arrival in 2024? Or does the issue more likely exist in my resume and cover letter? Speaking of, do people actually do cover letters anymore? They seem “optional” on most applications.