That is a whole interesting topic -- the various specialties within my general field (software development) that I would be quite capable of doing.
But that is in theory. In practice, they want experience to do most of these things.

I hope you find something soon, sounds stressful. Would it be possible, with all your experience, to become self employed?

Generally in IT that would involve doing 1099 contract work, which I'm pretty sure Matthew is open to and has done in the past, but you usually have to go out and find work regardless.

I mean, you're not alone, the entire software industry is like this right now. Fresh grads, senior devs, etc. It's brutal tbh and the rest of the job market isn't much better. The only people I know to have constant employment are blue collar workers, laying tiles, flooring, roofing, etc.

I have 8 YOE, which in "normal times" should land me a job in a week. I've been looking for over a year now, written easily about 100 applications over the past year, did 20+ interviews and got about 50 rejections and the rest ghosted me (rough numbers).

I wanted to give an update about my job situation.

I've been applying to countless jobs these past months, both local and remote. I will say, however, that my local area has very few software developer jobs, especially considering that San Antonio (the nearest large city) is the 10th largest in the United States.

I've had a couple interviews, but unfortunately I wasn't chosen. I must say, it hits you harder when someone looks into you more closely and then rejects you, compared to being filtered out by some AI bot, or having your resume (1 out of 300) superficially thrown on the discard pile by a human. Obviously the latter isn't a firm rejection of you and your career/skills developed over your adult lifetime.

It's been discouraging, to be honest.

First of all, there's the "fragmentation" of my career. Unlike some other guys, I never picked a specific niche. I have done ALL KINDS of software development: Standalone applications, Web development, Android development (both native and React Native). It's hard to focus on just one of them, when you never know what the next job opportunity will require. I feel like I need to stay flexible.

My experience is all over the place. As soon as I got a computer, I dove in to writing games in Qbasic and Pascal. Then I taught myself C and C++, and practiced that quite a bit. Professionally, I started out in 1997 writing windows applications and such, a lot of miscellaneous (C, C++, even some Cobol around Y2K). Then I took 3 and a half years off to attend the SSPX Seminary. After being dismissed in 2003, I got into Web Development.

Apparently there was a fundamental shift that took place around that time -- writing heavy Windows apps was less of a thing, and the Internet was becoming huge. That's why I pivoted to web development; I wasn't the only one. It's where all the jobs were.

So began the SECOND phase of my career. I did web development (PHP, MySQL, Javascript, Linux, Java, etc.) for TAN Books for 10 years, slowly transitioning to freelance work towards the end. I was young and fervent, and had a lot of free time back then. I wrote a Warcraft II clone that ran completely in the browser, for crying out loud! It was literally a webpage, but you couldn't tell. It seemed like a DOS game on CD-ROM. After TAN replaced me with off-the-shelf software (Magento ecommerce), I did freelance work for a few years (experiencing a lot of variety, and a lot of successful projects).

But in 2017 (just 8 years ago) began the THIRD phase of my career. My growing family needed more space, so I decided to look to San Antonio for regular, local work. I found a couple contract positions (back to back) and earned enough during that year to buy a brand new 600 sq. foot manufactured home to give us more living space. (Adding on to our existing home would have been insane expensive)

I spent about 1/2 a year looking for work, then got a web developer job at LifeSite. That lasted 2 years. I was laid off due to decreasing donations at the nonprofit; this was in December 2020, after Cooties-19 hit the economy hard.

Which brings us almost to the present day. The last 2 jobs I had were mostly React Native (creating apps using Javascript). I also wrote an app of my own, which hasn't taken off due to lack of marketing budget (and complete saturation of the App market these days).

But now that we got that necessary background info out of the way, here is the important part.

There are some aspects of my situation that are bothering me right now:

* The last two jobs I did very well, there were no criticisms, I was doing better than my co-workers at the point of my layoff.
* I'm not expensive. If you heard my salary, you would laugh. One of the layoffs was a company in *California* where a Big Mac costs $20.
* I'm not getting many interviews
* I've done a couple interviews, but with no success, even when I seemed to be a great fit. There seems to be too much competition.
* My last layoff was due to my boss discovering (by accident?) how many great unemployed developers are out there; he figured "he could do better". Even though only 3 months had passed since he hired me!
* Even 1 year ago, I was optimistic, developing my own Android app in React Native, finishing it, and releasing it to the App Store. But would I do that today? I know it's basically a waste of time, as no one will see it.

As you know, I'm a very big picture person. And that's kind of working against me these days. I'm a man grounded in truth and reality. I have the big picture in my mind at all times. I always look forward to the logical conclusion of something. So for example, I'm unable to "forget" the reality that it's almost impossible to self-publish and promote your own app. So it takes all the fun out of spending the hundreds of hours to write an app. I used to be able to focus on my project, like was I was a teen, and ignore the risks and get it done -- but now reality has beat the door down and gained access to my mind, as it were.

I think back to years past, and realize how different those days were -- even 1 or 2 years ago!

Now when I talk about being discouraged from writing an app that no one might see, don't get the wrong idea. I'm not talking about playing video games, watching movies, or some other time waster instead. No, what I do instead is focus on my family, my household, and raising my children. You'd be amazed how busy that can keep you. Even with my powerful imagination, I find it hard to imagine what it would be like for a single person to be unemployed. Especially if that single person didn't own a large property. In fact, such a single person would have more free time OUTSIDE OF their full time job, than I have right now while unemployed. I'm always working on something; just not always for pay.

In conclusion, I ask for your prayers during this holy season of Christmas. It's not the length of the unemployment that's bothering me right now; I've been here SO many times before. It's the pattern I'm seeing, the big picture I see developing, the outlook for the future. It's the realization that even though I've done nothing else career-wise, that doesn't mean my resume is great or attractive to employers. Especially when the market is down and many of the competition have more impressive resumes.

In short, it's like I'm being forced to question my identity as a software developer. And any man will tell you: that's serious. A man identifies with his career; it's what he does. I thought about 20 years ago that I had "arrived" and was solidly entrenched as a legit, established software developer. It was beyond question. But the last year has forced even me to entertain thoughts of "impostor syndrome" and to question my worth as a developer. It's very discouraging.

It's not normal or ideal, humanly speaking, for a man pushing 50 to be in this position. He should be established, with no one questioning his competence in the career he has practiced for 3 decades. He shouldn't have to hustle and compete with 20 year olds for the same positions. He shouldn't have to question his own worth.

Anyone 50 or over can tell you: you get "tired" when you get older, and I don't mean the kind that sleep will fix. You get a bit slower but much wiser, especially to all the cyclical patterns of life, the business world, human beings, etc. You have checked out of ALL the nonsense by this point. And you just don't have the same fervor, the same energy, the same insane drive, that you had as a youth. Again, don't get me wrong. I'm probably in the top 5% for men of my age as far as health, weight, energy, activity (e.g., daily steps), etc. But ultimately, you can't beat Father Time.

It similar to what many women in their 30's say online about being "tired", specifically they just don't feel like going out every night and partying anymore. They start wanting to "stay in" and live a more settled lifestyle. Youth is all about learning, energy, drive, building (career, family) and exploration. As you get older, you just mature whether you like it or not, whether you have a guide or not. You naturally learn patterns and understand the vanity of life more and more.

So please pray for me, and my family, that I can find work. I might have to wait until the AI bubble finishes bursting or something.

For now, I know that no one is going to hire new employees the last month of the year, so I'm going to just enjoy the holy season of Christmas with my family, keep praying, stay busy, keep applying to jobs ("you can't win if you don't play") and hope for a job sometime after the New Year.