This is actually pretty fitting, but I had been looking for a new job and working to polish my site into a better portfolio. I had written a piece about "The Future of Group Messaging" that I had worked really hard on, and once I finished it, I posted it on HN, fully intending to reach out to recruiters to find work. However, it ended up gaining a lot of traction on HN, and from that post, I received about 25 inbound job offers that I was able to choose from.

I still think back to how stressed I was while building the site, and I thought it was such a waste of time. But it got me the job I needed at the time and opened a lot of doors for me. That said, I could theoretically attribute it to HN and my writing, though the custom site helped.