A few days before the offer, the post was a confession: the interview had gone badly. Not badly in the usual sense — thoroughly, catastrophically, the kind of performance you replay at two in the morning. The candidate was certain.
The company disagreed. They liked him, and made an offer.
What surfaced alongside the relief was the rest of it: almost a year of searching, side gigs to cover the gaps, applications sent into silence, practice interviews, study, and a long stretch of questioning whether any of it was working. There had been days when it broke them. They kept applying anyway.
Their message to everyone still in it was simple, and they meant it: the break comes. Keep going.