5 Lessons from Helping Engineers Land $3M+ in Tech Jobs

Bashiri Smith · Facebook reel · 2026-09-10 · 1:31 · 1,492 views · Open on Facebook

Topics: Resume, Job Search & Interviews, Portfolio Projects, Industry Trends & Job Market · Level: beginner

Summary

Bashiri Smith shares five patterns he saw over two years of helping engineers land jobs worth more than $3M in combined salary. The five are: have solid engineering fundamentals, stay consistent well past six months, build projects worth showing, be easy to work with, and have a real reason for doing this beyond money. He says today's job market is more competitive than in 2020, so you need an edge. He ends by pitching his community.

Key points

• Don't suck: you need at least intermediate software engineering skills to land technical roles (forward deployed, AI solutions, AI engineering, software engineering).
• Be consistent: most people try for 2-3 months and then quit or stay comfortable. Plan to keep going for well over 6 months.
• Build: engineers who build in their own time stand out from about 90% of other engineers. Without projects worth looking at, interviews won't come.
• Be sociable: you don't have to be an extrovert, but being easy to talk to and work with brings more opportunities.
• Care: the engineers who get hired fastest usually aren't just chasing money. Know your own reason for being in tech.
• The market has changed since 2020: knowing how to code no longer gets you a job right away. It's competitive now and you need an edge.

Resources mentioned

• BASWE.Ai Engineer (Skool community) · community · skool.com · paid
  The creator's paid community and program, with an AI learning roadmap (including the full ops and evaluation track), daily calls with engineers and recruiters, resume and portfolio help, and a job-search pipeline.
  Also in: Basic RAG Pipeline in 60 Seconds: From Documents to Grounded Answers (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Pointer to Bashiri Smith's Complete AI Engineer Roadmap for 2026 (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Step-by-Step Roadmap to a $200K+ AI Engineering Role (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), How to Evaluate a RAG Pipeline: Retrieval vs. Generation (Interview Answer) (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 76 more

Try this

• Get your software engineering skills to at least an intermediate level before applying for technical roles.
• Commit to your job search or upskilling for well over six months instead of giving up after 2-3 months.
• Build projects in your spare time that are worth showing to employers.
• Work on communication and being easy to work with.
• Write down your own reason for pursuing engineering, beyond money.
• Comment "help" on the video if you want to join the creator's community.