My Professional Overview

(Est. Reading Time: 4 min)    

I've been out of a job for over a year, and I have been applying to over 1000 jobs during that time. I lost count, seriously, but I noticed a trend. When I see less job postings, I get more job ghosting when I apply. Alternatively, when I see more job postings, I get more rejections. During this time, I had over 16 different companies I've interviewed with, and almost all have been setup by recruiters. The thing is, recruiters are not doing well in this job market, either, and there are a lot of scammers out there messing everything up. So, to even the score a bit, I wanted to inject more humanity into my hunt.

Job applications today are a form with 5 to 10 blanks, half of it being demographics questions at the end that I've answered so many times, that I can almost recite them word-for-word from memory. How do you add more humanity to that? Add a "Are you a robot?" captcha to them? No, I needed a "cover letter" to add to my job applications.

Cover letters never get read, though. I actually noticed that many job applications don't even have a spot to attach one to the application anymore. Still, I can't let my resume, as truthful as it is, speak for me completely. It has gaps of unemployment. It has short tenures. It has Software Engineering titles that don't make me look like I've been doing the same work for the last 10 years. I needed a better way to describe who I am and what I have been doing.

So, as basic as this blog post is, I wanted to show you all my take on a "Professional Overview", which is a nicer, more modern way of saying "Cover Letter". If I get a chance to upload a cover letter, this is what I am now uploading instead.

Hi there,

Thanks for taking the time to look at my application. I’m a Senior Software Engineer who’s spent the last decade fixing broken systems, leading with clarity, and writing code that holds up under pressure. I’m looking for a team that values clear communication, strong engineering practices, and building things the right way.

I know the gaps and short stints on my resume might stand out, so here’s the real story. I was laid off in a last-in-first-out round at Viasat where they cut 800 people. After that, I hit a brutal job market. During that time, I kept building. I designed and planned backend architecture for several personal projects, deepening my expertise in scaling Django, PostgreSQL, Redis, and async APIs in Dockerized environments. I also started analyzing hiring trends like an engineer, figuring out what works and what doesn’t when it comes to standing out. And that’s just part of how I’ve stayed sharp.

After Rackspace, I moved through a few roles that were short but still packed with impact. At Embold Health, I led a migration project that unified three legacy systems into one clean Django backend. I parted ways with them after realizing the company’s direction clashed with my personal values. That experience helped me lock in the three rules I now use to guide my career. Fair pay. Real work-life balance. And work I can be proud of.

At Lonestar Aerospace, I was promoted to Lead Software Engineer and was in deep, supporting defense and private sector contracts across teams. But after repeated promises of a raise for that promotion that never came, I accepted an offer from Cognitive Space. Working with satellite tech was something I couldn’t pass up. Unfortunately, after just over a month, I was let go in a funding-related layoff. The company had hired too many engineers and not enough leadership. When their investors pushed back, they laid off two of us at random. I took that as a chance to breathe. My family had just bought our second home, and I spent that time doing the renovation work myself while also navigating a slow job market, staying technical, and staying ready.

My background is about turning chaos into working systems. I am an engineer and innovator in heart and mind. I’ve walked into broken apps, messy processes, and poor engineering culture, and I’ve helped turn them around. I watch how things run, learn the constraints, figure out the real pain points, and build action plans that get buy-in and make a difference. I don’t chase shiny tools. I build with purpose and experience.

I've been the go-to engineer when things are stuck, when the code is a mess, or when teams need direction. At Rackspace, I helped lead internal engineering conferences as the Global Tech Crew co-chair. I mentored devs across teams and gave talks that helped people grow. At every job, I’ve helped improve the work and the people doing it. That’s what I’m best at.

I’m not inflating my skills or making anything up. I’m a real engineer with a decade of experience, and I still get excited to solve hard problems and leave things better than I found them.

If you’re looking for someone who’s been through the hard parts, knows what good engineering looks like, and won’t waste your time, I’d love to talk. I’m ready to bring everything I’ve got to a team that builds with purpose.

Thanks again for reading.

Matthew Manning 

Don't be afraid to be honest, and tell your story the way it happened. Life happens, and the people you actually want to work with are going to know that. When you get rejections and you have experience like mine, you know why most of those rejections come in, without them giving a single explanation.