[winrid]

> I like jumping in to help where it's needed, even on the front-end

Did you say this in the interviews? Even if you said you don't do frontend, if you said this too, that's why.

I'd try to apply to jobs with titles like "Backend Engineer" etc, not generic software dev jobs. People look at titles. If your title is Senior Software Engineer, you'll be expected to do frontend at most poorly managed startups. Managers and HR churns all the time. But your title makes your responsibilities clear. Even if you apply for a "senior s/w engineer" job tell them you want your title to be "senior backend engineer" or whatever.

For example early on on my career I only did frontend, and then I applied for a job that was specifically "Backend Engineer". I never wrote a line of frontend at that next job.