Skip to content

Month 11-Week 3: Network outreach + profile alignment

Week summary

  • Goal: Refresh resume, LinkedIn, GitHub README to fully reflect new identity. Reach out to 5 people in your specialty. Submit 2-3 CFPs for future talks.
  • Time: ~9 h over 3 sessions.
  • Output: Updated profiles, 5 outreach messages, 2-3 CFP submissions.

Why this week matters

Year-long compound interest gets harvested via network and visibility. Engineers skip this week's work because it feels like "not technical." That's exactly why it's leveraged-most engineers don't do it.

Prerequisites

  • M11-W02 complete with capstone post live.
  • Session A-Tue/Wed evening (~3 h): resume + LinkedIn + GitHub
  • Session B-Sat morning (~3 h): list 10 targets + 5 outreach messages
  • Session C-Sun afternoon (~3 h): CFPs + community engagement

Session A-Resume + LinkedIn + GitHub

Goal: Public profiles reflect the new identity coherently.

Part 1-Resume (75 min)

Headline / title: "AI Engineer | Specialty: | Backend & Observability moat"

Summary (2 sentences): - "I build production LLM systems with rigorous evaluation. Background: in backend / SRE. Specialty: ."

Experience-reorder + reframe each role: - Lead with AI-relevant work. - Quantify: "Built X serving Y QPS at Z latency." - Don't lie. Do reorder, restate.

Selected Public Artifacts: - 4-5 best blog posts (link). - Capstone repo (link). - Optional: link talk recording.

Keep the resume to 1 page if early-career, 2 if senior.

Part 2-LinkedIn (45 min)

Headline → match resume. Featured posts → pin the capstone post. About → 2 paragraphs: 1. "I do X. I specialize in Y. I write Z." 2. "I'm interested in roles / collaboration around ."

Part 3-GitHub profile (60 min)

Profile README (<username>/<username> repo): - 1-line who-you-are. - "Currently building" with capstone link. - "Recently writing" with 3-5 posts. - Contact info.

Pin top 4 repos: - Capstone. - Specialty repo. - Anchor project (incident-triage-llm). - One foundational repo (transformer-from-scratch).

Output of Session A

  • Updated resume, LinkedIn, GitHub profile.

Session B-Targets + outreach

Goal: List 10 target companies. Send 5 substantive outreach messages.

Part 1-10 target companies (75 min)

Companies hiring in your specialty in 2026: - Frontier labs: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind. - AI infra: Scale, Cohere, Together AI, Databricks, Modal, RunPod. - AI products: Cursor, Lovable, Linear (AI features), Replit, Notion (AI). - Open source: Hugging Face. - Mid-stage AI: Perplexity, Anysphere, Sierra, Decagon.

For each: - Who's the most relevant person? (Engineering blog authors, public-on-X engineers.) - What's their public output? (Blogs, papers, talks.) - Which of their work resonates with yours?

Part 2-5 outreach messages (75 min)

Not asking for a job. Asking a real technical question about their work.

Template:

Hi ,

I read your post on . Specifically the bit about -that's something I've been working on at in . I'm curious about .

No expectation of a reply, just thought I'd share. If you want to chat for 20 minutes, I'd love to.

-

5 of these. Polite. Specific. Two will respond. One conversation will materially affect your career.

Part 3-Follow-ups list (30 min)

Track in a notes file. Set reminders to follow up in 2 weeks if no reply (one polite nudge max).

Output of Session B

  • 5 outreach messages sent.
  • Tracking file.

Session C-CFPs + community engagement

Goal: Submit 2-3 CFPs. Spend an hour engaging substantively in the community.

Part 1-Identify CFPs (45 min)

Search: - papercall.io (search by date). - "AI conference CFP ". - Local meetups via meetup.com. - AI Engineer Summit, NeurIPS workshops, MLOps World, PyData.

Part 2-Submit CFPs (75 min)

For each: short description (~250 words) and an outline. The capstone is the talk topic. Adapt the description to each CFP's audience.

Part 3-Community engagement (60 min)

Spend an hour: - On X/Twitter, follow + engage with 5 practitioners. Substantive replies, not "great post!" Quote-tweets that add something. - In one Discord/Slack: ask or answer a substantive question. - In your specialty's GitHub Discussions: contribute one thoughtful comment.

This is building presence-slow, accumulative, real.

Output of Session C

  • 2-3 CFPs submitted.
  • 5 substantive engagements.

End-of-week artifact

  • Resume + LinkedIn + GitHub profile updated
  • 5 outreach messages sent
  • 2-3 CFP submissions
  • 5 substantive community engagements

End-of-week self-assessment

  • My profile reads as "AI engineer with specialty," not "backend who dabbles."
  • I have at least 1 outreach response.
  • I am visible in the community in a sustained way.

Common failure modes for this week

  • Generic outreach. Templates that say "I admire your work" go unread. Specifics earn replies.
  • Skipping CFPs. Even rejection is feedback.
  • Cosmetic profile updates. Treat them seriously-they're the front door.

What's next (preview of M11-W04)

Capstone v0.2 hardening + month-11 retro. Address feedback from launch.

Comments