Overcommitted | Software Engineering and Programming Insights

Job postings are climbing and plenty of engineers still can't get a reply. Erika and Brittany sit down with Taylor Desseyn to ask why, and what to actually do about it.

Taylor opens with the disconnect: postings are up against a three year look back and Randstad's state of the market report just logged its first positive quarter in a while, but doom and gloom travels further on the internet than good news, and big tech layoffs control the headlines. The practical reason roles feel unfillable is that hiring managers frequently have a candidate picked before HR ever posts the job, with referrals stacked up ahead of the application pile.

From there the conversation moves through the three stages of rejection, no reply, no interview, and no offer, and what each one actually tells you. Taylor argues the technical interview is on its way out in favor of proof of work, and that the question candidates should prepare for is not what you built but how it moved the needle. He shares his hot take that junior engineers now need to build something, get real users on it, and enter organizations closer to mid-level, illustrated with a student he mentored who did exactly that. Brittany connects it to the collapse of the old concentric circles of scope, where senior now carries what staff used to carry and everyone owns a project from day one.

The second half gets practical. Taylor walks through building a career.md file, a position by position brain dump of wins and real numbers, and using ChatGPT or Claude as the brain with personal AI assistants as the hands. He covers standardizing a resume template so AI output doesn't look generic, why AI slop is a function of what you feed it, and how to replace spray and pray with watchers, a shared Notion inbox, and contextual DMs to the people actually doing the hiring. His framing: use AI to get to the DMs faster, not to apply more.

On networking, he recommends opening your phone contacts before opening LinkedIn, having one to two conversations a week even when you're happy, and ten to fifteen a week when you're searching, because the effort you put in today pays off six to twelve months later. He makes the case that everyone should have a podcast or a 15 minute livestream, with a caution that outreach has to be contextual rather than cold. He also covers negotiation, where he prefers bullet points over scripts, keeping a separate compensation doc, always giving a specific reason for an ask, and being the last person to talk.

The episode closes with how Taylor maintains community at 500 to 1000 notifications a day, why he thinks human connection matters more in the AI era rather than less, a counterpoint about his brother who has built a great career without posting anything online, and a fun segment where everyone competes to be the worst AI career coach possible.
Taylor Desseyn has spent 15 years in tech recruiting, hosts the Guidance Counselor 2.0 podcast, and is VP of Global Community at Randstad Digital, powered by Torc.

Hosts
Overcommitted: https://overcommitted.dev
Brittany Ellich: https://brittanyellich.com
Erika Eggemeyer: https://github.com/eggyhead

Guest
Taylor Desseyn: https://tdesseyn.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylordesseyn/
Email: taylor@torc.dev
Taybot, Taylor's AI job search coach, text: 628-246-5885

Links
Tab: https://tab.bot/
Kiki: https://kikilabs.ai/
Boardy AI: https://www.boardy.ai/
Pally: https://pally.com/
Instinct: https://instinct.com/
Willow Voice: https://willowvoice.com/
Assistant Benchmark: https://assistantbenchmark.com/
React Summit: https://reactsummit.us/
Taylor's All Things Open talk in 5 bullets: https://taylordesseyn.beehiiv.com/p/the-whole-ai-job-search-talk-in-5-bullets

Jim Ray works in developer relations at Bluesky, where he helps developers build on the AT Protocol (atproto) and co-hosts the Off Protocol podcast. Brittany and Bethany talk with him about what developers can build on the open social web today and what’s coming next.

Jim explains Spaces, the upcoming permissioned data layer that will let developers build private groups and communities on atproto, and how builders might choose between public and private data. He shares his path from journalism school at UNC through newsrooms, a design agency, and almost a decade of developer relations at Slack before joining Bluesky. The conversation also covers:

why lexicons make atproto easy for AI coding agents to build on
how the independent PLC directory helps keep the protocol “locked open”
how competing blogging apps Leaflet, Offprint, and pckt worked together on the standard.site lexicon for long-form publishing

The episode wraps with AtmosphereConf 2027, which has its call for presentations open now. Then a round of predictions: when Spaces ships, and whether any app in the Atmosphere will ever outgrow Bluesky.

Links
Jim Ray on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jimray.bsky.team
Off protocol: https://atproto.com/off-protocol
PLC Directory: https://web.plc.directory/
Standard.site: https://standard.site/
Leaflet: https://leaflet.pub/
Offprint: https://offprint.app/
Pckt: https://pckt.blog/
Wordpress standard.site plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/atmosphere/
Em-dash from Cloudflare: https://emdashcms.com/
Atmosphereconf 2027: atmosphereconf.org 
Atmosphereconf 2027 CFP: https://atmosphereconf.org/speak
Attie: https://attie.ai/
delve.town: https://delve.town/

Overcommitted: https://overcommitted.dev
Bethany Janos: https://trustyduck.dev
Brittany Ellich: https://brittanyellich.com

Can you trust software written without AI? We examine the risks of manual coding versus automated vulnerability exploits.At Rails World 2026, a show of hands revealed that writing material amounts of code by hand is becoming a rarity. We discuss whether that human-written code is actually safer, especially after reviewing the eMudhra certificate authority compromise where private keys were recovered in under a second. Between open-weight models demonstrating Mythos-class exploit skills and the ongoing debate over AI consciousness, the security landscape has shifted significantly.This conversation is for engineers navigating the reality of AI mandates at work and the impact of agents that continue running after you log off. We also cover the practical side of professional development, from Bethany building a holiday gift-list app to Brittany replacing cloud subscriptions with local transcription tools. By analyzing these technical shifts, we aim to help you maintain a grounded perspective on your career trajectory.Subscribe for weekly software engineering breakdowns, and comment on which professional challenge you want us to tackle next.

Hosts
Overcommitted: https://overcommitted.dev
Bethany Janos: https://www.trustyduck.dev
Brittany Ellich: https://brittanyellich.com

What do you do when the project you prepared for is no longer the priority? In our first Honest Answers segment, Erika and Bethany respond to a listener's question about a last-minute change of plans. They discuss how communication can make a change feel less arbitrary, why context switching leaves unfinished work on your mind, and how stopping notes, handoff documentation, and an AI-assisted morning routine can help you pick work back up. They also cover keeping a record of contributions when projects don't ship, separating your identity from your assigned work, and the loss of autonomy that can come with a reorg. The conversation turns to disagree and commit, the psychological safety it requires, and recognizing when it may be time to find a different team or role. To close, they translate some familiar corporate memos into plain language.

Hosts
Overcommitted: https://overcommitted.dev
Bethany Janos: https://www.trustyduck.dev
Erika Eggemeyer: https://github.com/eggyhead

Show Links
Molly Graham, Work Whiplash: https://mollyg.substack.com/p/work-whiplash
John Cutler, TBM 31/52: Why Does Our Strategy Keep Changing?: https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-3152-why-does-our-strategy-keep
ShiftMag, Do managers shift priorities to make engineers miserable?: https://shiftmag.dev/shifting-priorities-development-business-886/
UW Bothell, Sophie Leroy on attention residue and ready-to-resume plans: https://www.uwb.edu/news/2019/02/12/task-interrupted
Sophie Leroy's faculty page and research publications: https://www.uwb.edu/faculty/sophie-leroy/
Jellyfish, Mitigating Context Switching in Software Development: https://jellyfish.co/library/developer-productivity/context-switching/
Masicampo and Baumeister, Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024192
Hello Interview, Handling a project priority change: https://www.hellointerview.com/community/questions/project-priority-change/cmlj4w9bn01yq08adp1vva9ot
David Rock, A sense of autonomy is a primary reward or threat for the brain: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-brain-at-work/200911/a-sense-of-autonomy-is-a-primary-reward-or-threat-for-the-brain
Bordia and colleagues, Uncertainty during organizational change: Is it all about control?: https://doi.org/10.1080/13594320444000128
Glavin and Schieman, Control in the Face of Uncertainty: https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272514546698
NASA, Managing the Trauma of a Terminated Project (PMHut reprint): https://pmhut.com/managing-the-trauma-of-a-terminated-project
Disagree and commit, Concept overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disagree_and_commit
Amazon's leadership principles, Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit: https://www.aboutamazon.com/about-us/leadership-principles

What does Stack Overflow’s 2026 Developer Survey reveal about software engineering, career insights, and engineering culture? The Overcommitted hosts unpack the findings, discuss what they mean for developers, and share the trends they’re watching across the profession.

Links
Developer survey: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026 
Ed from Polytoken: https://youtu.be/YrmR6EZ5Y1U

Hosts
Overcommitted: ⁠⁠https://overcommitted.dev⁠ 
⁠Bethany Janos: ⁠⁠https://www.trustyduck.dev
Brittany Ellich: ⁠https://brittanyellich.com 
Erika Eggemeyer: ⁠⁠https://github.com/eggyhead