The NoDegree Podcast – No Degree Success Stories for Job Searching, Careers, and Entrepreneurship · Jonaed Iqbal

No Degree Success: Job-Search & Career Growth Strategies from a Tech Exec—Jae Taylor | E190

·52 min·3 clips

Jay says he did 15 rounds with Google and got a verbal yes before a 10,000-person freeze killed the role.

1. The NoDegree Podcast episode follows Jay Taylor's job-search and career-growth story across Salesforce, Twitter, Peloton, and Google. 2. Host Junaid Iqbal speaks with Jay Taylor, a returning guest from episode 30 in September 2020, about working in tech without a degree. 3. The episode asks how Jay navigated a tougher market, built credibility on LinkedIn, and future-proofed his career after a February 2022 layoff. 4. Jay says he left Salesforce after about two years because the work felt too comfortable and he wanted faster pace and more impact. 5. He compares Salesforce's roughly 50,000 employees, Microsoft's about 200,000, and Twitter's about 8,000 to explain why Twitter looked more manageable. 6. Jay says he met a Twitter senior leader through LinkedIn while asking about investing, and that conversation led to a job offer. 7. At Twitter, he was a group product manager focused on developer experience and platform engineering. 8. He says Twitter had a diverse culture, but his boss left two months after he arrived, and the new leader's philosophy differed from his own. 9. Jay says Twitter was doubling its team for new plans, but the internal dysfunction made him think the fit would not last. 10. He moved to Peloton as senior director of platform engineering, where the scope expanded to all of platform engineering instead of a slice of it. 11. Jay describes Peloton as strong on culture, leadership, and team quality before the stock fell from about $120 to $50 a share. 12. He told his boss to lay him off instead of his team, because he had just hired two product managers from Salesforce and another person from GoDaddy. 13. Jay says he was laid off in February 2022, just before the tech industry downturn accelerated. 14. He says the next 12 to 18 months brought hiring freezes and a job market where companies received three to 20 times more applications. 15. Jay argues that layoffs can hit high performers because leaders far from the team often make cuts without knowing each person's full value. 16. He uses Google Stadia and newly hired employees as examples of people who can still be cut before building a reputation. 17. Jay says he now thinks a worker should stay about two years at a company to build enough reputation to be invited back. 18. He says the tone is direct and practical, with Jay using layoffs, salary jumps, and title changes to explain how the market works. 19. People building a tech career without a degree will find this useful. 20. People looking for general motivation without job-market detail may skip it.

As heard by us

A plainspoken take on staying employable in tech without a degree.

Jay Taylor's return visit stays grounded in the basics of building a career in tech without a degree. It follows the rough job market he ran into, why he still sees engineering as the safer bet for openings, and how his time at Microsoft, Twitter, Peloton, and Salesforce shaped…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a no-degree roadmap for navigating a bad economy and hearing how Jay Taylor built career momentum at Microsoft, Twitter, Peloton, and Salesforce.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The NoDegree Podcast – No Degree Success Stories for Job Searching, Careers, and Entrepreneurship