Pawn shop guy gave you car advice, that's the whole problem. A $600 belt beats a new motor any day.

A 3 page teardown with line edits for $40 is wild, I read a comment thread where someone said those cheap reviews are hit or miss but the good ones catch stuff like your "managed projects" bullet having no numbers. For cover letters you could try a local career center or a subreddit where people swap reviews for free. Way cheaper than another $40 shot in the dark.

Of course the neighbor who gardens over the fence has the magic cheesecake trick, meanwhile the rest of us are out here buying springform pans with our hard earned cash. Cold oven start sounds like witchcraft but crack free on try number one is hard to argue with. Honestly the foil wrapping is the worst part of the water bath, all that crimping and folding just to have water sneak in anyway. Maybe try it without once and see if the cold oven does enough on its own.