Mika Flowers

Job Search Diaries, Part 2 Last time, I got rejected 2 minutes after applying to a job I found myself. This time, they found me. A recruiter named Melissa emailed me directly through ZipRecruiter. Not a generic blast — my name, my city, a specific role: Software Engineer at a company called Whitespace, in Alexandria, VA. She said she was "interested in candidates with your qualifications" and invited me to apply. So I did. Same day. Two days later, the rejection came. Sunday morning, 9:55 AM.

This is a submission for the Sanity Challenge, Path Two: Vibe-Code Something Strange What I Built I started this hackathon building a dream journal. A few days later, I was walking through a giant library filled with real DEV articles, debugging floating bookshelves, building spatial authoring tools, and learning how to teach Sanity to remember which shelves were alive. That escalation probably tells you most of what you need to know about how this project went.

I applied for a Junior Solutions Engineer role today. Not a senior role. Not a staff role. Not some "10 years of experience required" fantasy posting. A junior role. The requirements were things like: Hands-on experience in solutions engineering, technical support, sales engineering, or automation-focused work Python SQL Data tooling Automation AI-driven products B2B software The right to work And one other thing: A degree in STEM, Finance, or another strong analytical field. I don't have one.