[SeoxyS]

I can't speak for the people who have interviewed you and rejected; but a couple comments spring to mind:

1) You're in London. Most of the companies you're thinking about are based in the San Francisco bay area, and this is where all the truly exciting stuff goes on. Now, I'm sure there's a technical community in London; but there are very few places in the world where technical people are in demand and where there is a lack of supply. And those places each have different prominent industries. In New York City, the smartest minds become Wall Street Quants. In San Francisco, they make web-technology startups. I imagine in London, the default is in the financial industry.

Concluding my point; this may not be a possibility for you, but if it is, you may want to look outside of London. You'd probably get something in a heartbeat in San Francisco, and I'm sure you'd do fine in NYC, too.

2) You're an "old school" guy; as you said. I'm doing a startup in SF which has grown tremendously (now >30people and barely a year old) and the growth has put us in a situation where we're desperate to hire more smart and skilled people. I have interviewed and rejected many people (including Googlers) who were much smarter than myself, having experience with Big Data, Java, C++, and even artificial intelligence. Pure skill is nowhere near as important as your mindset, and how you will fit within the company culture. People who come from an environment where they sling Java for a big company have a tendency to not fit well with the way we all take responsibility for our projects, iterate and release fast and often, etc.

Now you may be looking for a change of pace. You may be into the idea of switching methodologies and toolset; but that's something you need to make clear to your interviewers. Your experience is like a background check. It tells us that you're a good & smart programmer. But the hiring decision is going to come down to the question: "How well do we think this guy is going to fit in here?"

That said, if you're looking for something in San Francisco, we're hiring. Shoot me an email at [e-mail].

[brackin]

There's a huge startup community in London. Huge community of VC's, angels, accelerators and startups. The government is aggressively pushing startups through TechCity and is redeveloping apart of the city for startups. http://www.techcityuk.com/#!/home

Most major US startups are basing their international offices in London.

Of course you are right, until a few years ago most development was for the financial industry but it's all changing.

[mattmanser]

I disagree completely with your first point, there's a programmer shortage pretty much everywhere in the world at the moment.

I have no idea what makes you think otherwise.