I’ll get an interview with a company that seems to have a relatively simple product and reportedly “easy” interview process according to Glassdoor, and I’ll get slammed with difficult leetcode questions that don’t seem to get any easier the more I read and practice. Other times, I’ll somehow get an interview with a company that has a complicated product, so I’ll be researching the technology they use and trying to prepare myself for whatever leetcode humiliation I have to suffer, only to drop the ball on a really easy non-leetcode problem. I just came off of this for a contract position that was really exciting but I messed up the absolute easiest rule about interfaces while looking for compiler errors that cost me.

Still other companies have HackerRank knockoffs like CodeSignal that don’t support relatively recent versions of languages, making trivial tasks like database access or HTTP GET requests either unnecessarily complex or completely impossible in an interview scenario. Normal code that I've implemented, seen on the job, or otherwise seen on the internet just doesn't work for these platforms.

I get ghosted a lot after the HR stage seems to go well. A decently-known US company went so far as to reach out to me on StackOverflow, connect me with a recruiter, set up a date for just a chat, and then suddenly fill the position and end the conversation.

How does anyone without a network of people they can ask for jobs deal with this? I don't think I can take much more of this, nothing so far seems to help. Whenever I try to ask questions or get advice I just get college students and new grads giving me "good vibes" or inapplicable advice they peeled off of CSCQ/dev.to and it's driving me nuts.