“Well, Joe, I did it. I applied to all the jobs.”

That is exactly how “Sam” opened our conversation. It made me laugh out loud, in spite of myself.

Let me set this up real quick.

Sam is a former vice president of product who came up through the project management ranks. She’s been out of work since being laid off at the end of last year, so about five full months now.

Sam is different. She’s not like you and me. She’s kind of a machine. She’s never been a developer, but she knows all the connective tissue between a developer’s brain and a successful production application—including infrastructure, security, Agile and Scrum, QA, and every flavor of every process that brings good code to paying customers.

Sam will tell you that she’s “not an idea gal.” She executes. With extreme prejudi

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