Hello folks, been a while since I updated my entries. Felt like touching on a topic that’s closer to my heart today.

I’m back in SV working full time for a company that I like a lot and whom the people there are all very nice :) Its the end of the third week that I’m back, and marks my fourth week starting work tomorrow. Prior to coming here, I was looking for jobs both in SG and SV. Jobs in SG didn’t take me too long to find compared to the ones in SV. A lot of factors are at play here - the time of the year when I was job-hunting, senior engineers being more in demand, visa being one of the main factors cause most startups didn’t offer H1B or H1B1 (the-less-known-to-startups-but-very-advantageous-visa for Singaporeans).

So yeah, I reached a point where I had a few Singapore offers on hand and at the same time I was interviewing with a few U.S companies. I had to make my decision soon for the SG offers and the same question kept ringing in my head - should I work in SG or should I go back to SV? Going back was one of my main focus for a while and I actually put off finding jobs in SG just so I could focus on the US side. Honestly it wasn’t fun just studying and interviewing for a few months - I stopped for like two times in between to catch my breath? I constantly felt stressed and anxious so the breaks were necessary. Going back to the point, now that I had a few offers in SG, I had a few paths to choose from - work in SG, work in SG for a few years and go back US, reject the offers and carry on US-job-hunting.

A lot of times I felt like staying in SG to work for a while - the companies which offered had really good future prospects and also partly cause I just felt like working. I knew that if I stayed, I would concentrate on working hard in the SG company for a few years - but I also felt that if I stayed, my past months of hard work would be gone? and I had to do a LDR which wasn’t ideal. Even though I knew that my family and close friends would be sad to see me leave for work in the states, in the end I decided to follow my gut and chose to continue the job hunt.

The decision didn’t come easy and I’m happy to say that I’m working in one of the US startups I was interviewing with during that period. I took time to write down why I wanted to work in SG/US to help with my decision making and ensure that I was doing what I wanted. I feel like being in the state of job-hunting can lead to a decrease in self confidence and sometimes what you wanted at the start isn’t really clear anymore? and sometimes you can’t help but self doubt when companies aren’t really giving you the chance to interview? What I really want to say is - it can be tough when you’re job hunting, it can be worrying and stressful but you really need to worry less and do more. Its all part of life and its a stage which will pass by eventually, it depends on how much hard work you put in and luck (yes, I do believe luck plays a part).

My bf sent me a tweet during that period and this is what it said: “My therapist taught me to interrupt my anxious thinking with thoughts like: ‘What if things work out’ and ‘What if all my hard work pays off?’ - Sinclair P. Ceasar III” and the message sunk in so well. Day by day you’re building knowledge that you didn’t have before and day by day you know more compared to your previous self. So for those of you who’re burning out from job hunting, take a moment to recharge and just know that the hard work you put in today will pay off in the future and your future self will thank you for it :)