I had been watching a US software company for a few months before I wrote to them.
They were clearly preparing to expand into Latin America. Their blog posts mentioned plans for the region, two social posts in Spanish looked like a test, and their job board had nothing in Latin America yet. I decided not to wait for a job post that might never exist. I spent a weekend writing a one-page proposal and I sent it directly to their CEO. My argument was simple: if they expand into Latin America without a full-stack developer who speaks Spanish and works in the same timezone, they will have problems, and I could be that person. I kept it short and specific to their product, and I sent it cold on a Tuesday morning. He answered the same day, and we had a call in the next 48 hours. That speed told me the timing was right. Then there were four rounds of interviews over about one month, in a format I had never seen before. The founder runs the company async-first, so there were no live technical interviews. I recorded Loom videos explaining how I would solve two architecture problems, and I wrote exercises about a localization strategy for one of their main features. It was slower and more careful than a normal interview panel, but it suited ↓