[the_cyber_pass]

As someone who has tried a couple times to jump the other way I can attest to this. Completely stonewalled for full stack developer positions.

I have found exploits by knowing the quirks of all sorts of libraries and I have to be able to understand how things work on a deep level. But because a lot of the job is tracing other peoples work and finding gaps in their logic, you don't have as much 'dev' time in the traditional sense. Most of your coding turns into ways to prep your exploit. Your life gets wrapped up chasing obscure malloc bugs or strange chrome behavior rather than contributing in normal developer ways and companies don't recognize this as transferable. I'm only a little bit bitter about it, but I love my work. I just hope the pay stays solid and I don't end up in a dead end job later in life.

Also it's really hard to be good in this industry. It is almost entirely driven by the top 1% of people and as someone who is not in that demographic it feels like a constant struggle to keep up.

[user5994461]

By your text, you're a random senior developer. It shouldn't be too hard to get a position, as long as you live in one of the active tech locations.

It looks like you and the parent poster are facing the usual company that is looking to hire a cheap 20 year old web dev with little experience. Not a good fit for you.