![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-2183683092-e1771331013502.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Getting a job in Silicon Valley is so cutthroat that some ambitious unemployed twenty\u2011somethings are literally hand\u2011delivering donut boxes stuffed with their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s to founders\u2019 front desks, hoping it will make them stand out for the hottest tech roles. But that\u2019s nothing new, says Dan Rogers, the new CEO of the $1.8 billion workflow software company Asana.<\/p>\n
Although Gen Zers are facing layoffs, hiring freezes, and AI anxiety at an unprecedented rate, landing a job at the HQs of Apple, Meta, and Alphabet \u201chas always been a long shot,\u201d Rogers warns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He would know: Rogers is one of the few British Silicon Valley CEOs. He started out in the small town of Grimsby\u2014better known as the butt of a Sacha Baron Cohen movie than as a tech launchpad\u2014and worked his way up to the top job in San Francisco via stints at Dell, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and more.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t remember it being easy back in the day, honestly,\u201d he exclusively tells Fortune of breaking into Silicon Valley. \u201cFor me, for example, it was never going to be possible that I\u2019d go straight to the hottest tech company in the hottest role. I always felt like I was going to have to work my way in, and I was going to have to work through experiences elsewhere that I would shine at.\u201d<\/p>\n
And now that Rogers is in the prime position of hiring and shaping the Bay Area\u2019s workforce, he says that\u2019s still the case.\u201d Despite the explosion of AI creating more tech jobs, competition for those entry-level roles is just as hard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asana CEO\u2019s advice for Gen Z looking to land jobs in Silicon Valley<\/p>\n
Ask Rogers for advice on the next generation trying to crack California\u2019s tech scene, and he doesn\u2019t have a quick hiring hack or\u00a0an interview\u00a0stunt.<\/p>\n
Instead, he recommends quietly building a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 that\u2019s impossible to ignore\u2014even if it takes years and detours through less prestigious companies. Or as he put it: \u201cMaybe come into the side door instead of the front door.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rogers stresses that landing an entry-level job, internship or grad scheme directly at one of after graduating \u201cis a long shot.\u201d Not impossible, but unlikely. For most Gen Zers, he says, the best route in is to build credible experience somewhere that\u2019ll teach you the tech skills the big names will eventually want.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those of us that go don\u2019t get through the front door, it\u2019s okay,\u201d he adds. \u201cThere are side doors along the way, and you\u2019ve just got to build towards that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are incredible experiences that you can get, maybe in smaller companies, maybe in a slightly different region, maybe in a slightly adjacent category. After a stint there, you would be super valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mindset hack that\u2019ll eventually lead to Silicon Valley success\u2014or rather, his version of the donut box<\/p>\n
Rogers is proof that a rejection letter from your dream tech company isn\u2019t the end. He too, had to work his way up the ranks through \u201cside doors\u201d to get to where he is today. \u201cMy story ends in Silicon Valley,\u201d he says. \u201cBut in the interim, I did really important roles in Texas. I did really important roles in Seattle, etc.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
By the time he finally made it to San Francisco, he\u2019d stacked enough varied experience that he could pull from a deep toolkit\u2014what he jokingly calls his \u201cdonut box\u201d version of presenting himself to tech bosses.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, if you chip away at building skills in your twenties, the salary and title will come later. It\u2019s slower than a literal donut box stunt (or even shooting bosses\u2019 cold emails, or wearing a placard sign asking for work), but far more reliable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI once received some advice from someone, and they said learning before earning,\u201d he adds. \u201cYou should make sure that the learning phase of your career extends as long as possible before you even think about the earning phase.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat that really meant for me was there\u2019s no shortcut to putting the building blocks in place that you\u2019re going to need to be successful.\u201d <\/p>\n
#Asana #CEO #Dan #Rogers #job #Silicon #Valley #isnt #harder #Gen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Getting a job in Silicon Valley is so cutthroat that some ambitious unemployed twenty\u2011somethings are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[959,636,585,960,968,961,644,641,943,962,970,315,969,359,935,317,441,963,964,965,966,414,360,967],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}