How did you get that job? I've read similar stories a couple of times here on HN yet I'm struggling to do the same. My main road block: not really having acquired the right skill set for industry after having focused for year to fine-tune my CV for academic positions. This is now kind of biting me in my rear side: I cannot do the rat wheel of academia any more, am not exactly young any more either, am sort of highly skilled in CS academia but not really suitable for a lot of CS industry positions.

I was on electrical engineering side of things. Honestly I looked for companies that had large quantities of engineering lay offs about a year beforehand and tried finding contacts and calling them directly. Turns out there were plenty of departments in the shit and needing hires. Landed a position at a defence company.

CS I would have no idea about. I work for a company that does software now but tends not to hire any CS grads.