I got laid off in March 2020. First time in my career. First time ever, actually — I'd always had something lined up, always had work waiting. Not this time.
COVID had just hit. Everyone was working from home. The news was panic. Twitter was chaos. And I was sitting in my apartment with a laptop and no job.
The Before Times
Before COVID, I was comfortable. Great salary, great people, familiar work. Kotlin exclusively. Scripting and experimenting with pseudo programming languages like JavaPoet and KotlinPoet. Writing code that would write code as output. Nothing exciting, nothing terrible.
COVID caught everyone by surprise. I hadn't built anything personal in months. I was just... existing.
So when they let me go, part of me was relieved. The other part was terrified.
The Job Hunt
Everyone said hiring stopped. Every article, every tweet, every "expert" — hiring is frozen, wait it out, hope for the best.
I didn't believe them. Maybe I was in denial. But I started sending emails.
400 emails. That's not an exaggeration. That's the actual number. I counted.
To agencies, to recruiters, to companies directly. "Hey, I'm an Android developer. Remote. Available now." Variations of that, anyway.
Do you know how many responses I got? Maybe 30. Some were polite rejections. Some were "we'll keep you in mind." Some never replied.
But 5 turned into offers. Five actual offers. In the middle of a pandemic.
The Remote Reality
Here's what I learned: hiring didn't stop. It just moved online.
Before COVID, everyone wanted "local candidates." "Must be in office." "We prefer onsite." After COVID? Suddenly remote was fine. Suddenly timezone differences were negotiable. Suddenly the entire world was open.
I was getting interviews from companies in Berlin, London, New York, Sydney. All remote. All desperate for Android developers.
The market had shifted while I wasn't paying attention. Companies realized they could hire anywhere. And they were hiring everywhere.
The Freelance Thing
With multiple offers on the table, I had a choice. Full-time somewhere? Contract work? Go freelance?
I tried freelance for a bit. It's... different. You bill by the hour, but you estimate by the day. You pitch projects, but you end up maintaining legacy code. You set your own hours, but you're always on call.
The money was better. The stress was worse. The variety was fun for about a month, then exhausting.
Freelance Android work is mostly: "fix this bug in our old app" or "add this feature nobody wants." Not exactly building something meaningful.
Tinybeans
It's an Australian company that moved to New York. Tinybeans - baby photos, sharing with family, that kind of thing. Not glamorous. Not sexy. Just a product that works and people actually use.
The team was small. Remote-first, even before COVID made it cool. The Android app was a legacy nightmare. No modern architecture. Half-baked tests. Exactly a legacy dump.
The interview process was straightforward. Code review, architecture discussion, culture fit. No leetcode. No whiteboard torture. Just... building software.
I took the offer. The salary was fine. But the team was incredible. The product made sense. And honestly? I was tired of pitching myself.
What I Learned
A few things from 2020:
Hiring never stops. Companies are always building. They're always shipping. The "hiring freeze" is for some companies, not all. Find the ones still hiring.
Remote work is here to stay. Before COVID, I thought remote was a perk. Now it's just how software is built. The talent pool doubled overnight. Companies figured out they could hire anyone, anywhere.
Your network matters, but cold emails work too. Of my 5 offers, 2 came from cold emails. The rest came from connections I'd made over the years. Both matter.
Don't stay where you're not valued. I was at a good place before I got laid off. COVID caught everyone off guard. Having nothing pushed me to build again, to learn again, to care again.
The Take
2020 was garbage for most people. I'm not going to pretend it wasn't. But for me, it was the year I got forced into a career I actually wanted.
I went from comfortable to unemployed to employed again in 9 months. I learned that the "obvious" job market (local, in-person, traditional) isn't the only one. I found a team I like at a company that makes something real.
The emails were worth it. All 400 of them.