LinkedIn's apply URL pattern is {jobUrl}/apply/?openSDUIApplyFlow=true
which opens the modal directly. This eliminates:
- Button finding with waitForSelector (flaky on slow loads)
- Click retry logic
- "Continue" link fallback for draft applications
- Shadow DOM piercing for button detection
Tested: modal opens reliably, meta readable from background page,
form + progress bar present, 3.4s total navigation time.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>