The Layoff Recovery Playbook for Software Engineers

All recovery pages

1. Day 1 After a Tech Layoff: A Software Engineer's Playbook The first 24 hours after being laid off set the tone for your whole job search. Here's what experienced SWEs actually do on day one.
2. Day 3 After a Tech Layoff: When Reality Sets In The adrenaline has worn off and the anxiety has arrived. What's normal to feel on day three, and what to do before you panic-apply to 200 jobs.
3. Week 1 After a Tech Layoff: Stabilize and Assess Week one is not for applying — it's for stabilizing. Severance review, unemployment filing, health insurance, and a quiet inventory of what you actually built.
4. Week 2 After a Tech Layoff: Build Your Search Infrastructure Week two is when the resume, LinkedIn, and first warm intros get built. Not applied — built. Three pieces of work that determine the next six weeks.
5. Week 3 After a Tech Layoff: Start Applying (But Differently) Week three is the first week of applying. But 70% referrals, 30% direct — and five targeted companies beat fifty shallow ones every single time.
6. Month 1 Checkpoint: What Working Looks Like Thirty days in, the numbers tell the truth. Here's how to read your own funnel — and the honest diagnosis of what's actually broken if the pipeline is dry.
7. Month 2: Double Down on What's Pulling By month two, 1–2 channels are outperforming the rest. Concentrate there. If nothing's pulling, the pitch is wrong — and here's how to know which pivot to make.
8. Month 3: When Nothing's Working Ninety days in with no offer. This is the structured diagnosis: is it the resume, the pitch, the pipeline, or the market? Run each as a two-week experiment.
9. Still Unemployed at Month 4+: A Pivot Strategy Four months, no offer. The shame isn't real but the math is. Contract work, adjacent roles, and how runway plus mental bandwidth determine the right pivot.
10. Protecting Your Mental Health During a Long Job Search The job search doesn't just take time — it takes you. Structure, limits, support, and the rejection-desensitization trick that keeps you sane past month two.
11. What to Do When You're Not Getting Responses Hundreds of applications, zero replies. It's not the volume — it's a diagnosable problem. Here's the triage tree SWEs should run before sending one more.
12. Financial Runway Math for a Laid-Off SWE How to calculate your real runway — severance, unemployment, savings, spouse income — and what to cut (and what not to cut) when the months start stacking up.