[cpeth]

I think it might be brutal for more than junior people now. I thought I would be fine when my previous employer decided to offshore all of engineering and I was laid off as a result. I have been at an architect/lead/principal level for the last 7 years doing backend work with mostly state-of-the-art tech on AWS. 15 years experience total, and just getting no traction despite referrals. None of my jobs were at hyperscale FAANG types, or super sexy stuff. I'm not a thought leader with an influential blog nor have I built an open source library with 5k stars. Maybe that is what it takes to get a call back now? I'm a regular hacker who loves technology and never dreamed I would be struggling this badly.

[popularonion]

I have 15 years of experience working on boring tech stacks, no social media presence at all, and I’m doing okay.

I’d suggest hitting up some tech recruiters and downgrading your past job titles. As far as your job search is concerned, you weren’t a “lead architect” using “state-of-the-art tech”, you were a Staff DevOps Engineer with experience in <insert AWS buzzwords here>. Etc etc.

[reactordev]

Mindset. Be humble and open to learning, don’t be desperate. Explain that this is what you love to do. That you genuinely care about the product/mission/service and you’ll land something. If you go in “I need a paycheck, I can code”, that’s not very compelling. I can teach someone to code. What I can’t teach is for someone to be hungry to learn.

So be positive, be humble, be sharp, and be willing.

Also, numbers game. 200 applications -> 63 interviews -> 12 callbacks -> 4 complete interview process -> 2 offers.