How do I get back into the tech industry after 4 years of unemployment?

My take:

1) You have an undergrad degree. The point of the degree is not to teach you knowledge one shot. It teaches you how to learn and problem solve. Your post has a tone of desperation. You need to realize what amazing qualities you bring to any kind of employment situation. Just this alone will make you successful.

2) In your situation, just don't even bother with Leetcode problems. If an employer flunks you for it, so be it. Thank them for the interview practice.

3) You need to apply consistently for jobs. They do not need to be fashionable. Make a website for your local tiny business. Heck .. go to your favorite tiny restaurant that doesn't have a site and ask to make it to them .. pro bono. If you did that for 1 month on your own terms, you will get a resume going.

4) I appreciate the comments posted by people suggesting OSS projects. I think that is too much for you and too long of a path. I recommend making portfolio pages or apps. Remember how you did it in undergrad getting that first job?

5) Stick to boring, mass market tech. Python and Java are great for employment. I would not recommend time with Niche languages unless you want to shoot for the stars right away. Do brushup on git.

6) Don't stress out and don't work crazy hours on anything. Start with 2-4 hours, and build up to 8.

Stay healthy

> What should I do to get to a point where I feel confident enough to actually send in applications?

Change how you think about applying for jobs. A job application is not a one-shot inflection point for the rest of your life. Instead, think about them as mini-experiments. Send out lots of applications, tweak your CV for some of them, try different keywords and cover letters, get ChatGPT to write a few for you. Treat it like any other skill that requires practice to improve. This works best for jobs you sort of don't want anyway, so you don't get spun out of your head trying to get everything dialed in perfectly for the jobs you do want. (I am also bad at this.)

> Will the 4-year gap and my choppy CV be a major hindrance to my hirability?

Yes.

> how do I minimise its debilitating effects?

Do you have time to contribute to some open source projects? Lots of FOSS is written in C, and they can always use more contributors. This is a great way to sharpen lots of the skills you need in good work environments anyway: collaboration, modern tooling and techniques, communication.

And then you can add, "Contributor to ... ... ..." to your CV and that will help.

> Should I be spending my time in expanding my knowledge areas?

Always. But, focus some of that energy on deepening your knowledge in areas where you're already strong. Usually, deep knowledge gets more money. But you should also have some working knowledge of stuff outside your specialization. Cross-pollination is cool.

> What should I do to get to a point where I feel confident enough to actually send in applications?

If you apply for a junior position: no need to do anything. Everything is relative to what kind of a job you want. LeetCode problems are only relevant in FAANG. I've never done LeetCode.

> Will the 4-year gap and my choppy CV be a major hindrance to my hirability?

The short stints don't look great.

> I feel like I have the best chance of getting hired in the kind of roles I used to work at and those are the ones I'm interested in as well but in doing so am I restricting myself to a limited number of positions?

When you specialize in anything, you restrict yourself. However, specializing makes it easier to get through the interview process. There's a bazillion Java developers, but not that many Haskell developers. Haskell shops can't just discard 70% of the applications, they actually can take the time to interview all the people that apply. A great Haskell developer has a way higher chance to get a job than a great Java developer, probably not that much difference for an average one though.

> Is my timing bad?

Does it matter? If you can't get a job right away, keep applying, but find some other way to support yourself in the meantime.

I have a choppy resume (for quite a few years my average time on a job was less than 6 months, with gaps). I have a big gap (I started a company that made 0 dollars). I am employed as a software engineer. So clearly it's not impossible.

There are two people you have to convince: the person in charge of hiring and yourself.

After a long time away, health issues, burnout etc it's easy to lose confidence. Find activities that bring back your confidence. Maybe this is a side project. Maybe it's learning something new. Maybe it's mentoring someone who is just starting. If you are constantly doubting yourself job applications will be very mentally draining so choose positive activities that build your skills and actively make you feel more confident.

The next person to convince is the person hiring you. My resume looks crappy. All of my jobs are from word of mouth, in person networking, events and conversations. Sometimes the resume is just a formality or is provided for HR. Sometimes it isn't needed at all.

If you have that much runway, you should apply to Recurse Center https://www.recurse.com/ which will give you a chance to build up your skills, your confidence, and your network.

> Will the 4-year gap and my choppy CV be a major hindrance to my hirability?

Yes, so spend some time thinking about how to get a hiring managers attention. If there's nothing separating you from someone with more recent experience you're going to struggle and get filtered out before anyone talks to you.

Ideally you can find a way to have conversations with a hiring manager or someone on the team you'd like to join vs emailing in a resume that a recruiter is going to toss. Find or create a reason for them to want to talk to you.

Nobody knows. Find out.

Apply for a bunch of jobs. Let's say 30.

If you get no responses, things are bad, maybe "start again" via a a bootcamp.

If you get responses but no interviews, try to get some feedback on why not and work on whatever the problems are.

If you get interviews but no offers, remember each interview makes you better at interviews and it's only a matter of time. Keep applying for jobs and working on any weak points which are revealed.

Good luck!

> 1. What should I do to get to a point where I feel confident enough to actually send in applications? (I have never really been any good at LeetCode-type problems and have no personal projects to speak of.)

It's unfortunate that the LeetCode type problems are an issue, because it's those types of companies that ignore gaps on resumes and other signals as long as you can pass the technical interview.

Have you built anything in the last 4 years, even if they weren't work related? Are you familiar with the latest trends and technologies? I think work on filling those gaps if the answer is no, if nothing else it'll dampen some of the imposter syndrome you'll be feeling.

In your situation I would apply to the Recurse Center: https://www.recurse.com/

I'd spend my time immersing myself in something I found interesting in tech, get depth, and utilize their connections to see if I can land a job in a related space.

Best of luck.

Why does your future employer need to know where you were for the last four years if you can do the job?

Perhaps it's unethical, but if I was given the choice between not being able to provide for my wife any kids, and being less that forthcoming on a resume, I'm going to choose the latter each and every time.

With that - find some company that has closed shop in the past two months. Their HR staff etc. will be long gone, and who's to say if you worked there or not. A job's a job - if you can do it then your resume shouldn't matter.

> 1. What should I do to get to a point where I feel confident enough to actually send in applications? (I have never really been any good at LeetCode-type problems and have no personal projects to speak of.)

We can't answer this for you, it's ultimately a question about how you feel. You're never going to satisfy every interviewer so I recommend trying to treat rejections as impersonally as possible so you can focus on trying to get stuff done without being overburdened by them.

> 2. Will the 4-year gap and my choppy CV be a major hindrance to my hirability? (My employement history consists of 2 years at a consulting firm and 3 short startup stints of <1 year each.) If yes, how do I minimise its debilitating effects?

Some people are going to care and some people aren't. For the sake of your sanity I recommend just telling the truth and accepting that it's going to screw you sometimes.

> 3. I feel like I have the best chance of getting hired in the kind of roles I used to work at and those are the ones I'm interested in as well but in doing so am I restricting myself to a limited number of positions? Should I be spending my time in expanding my knowledge areas? (Although I feel like I know too little of anything else to ever feel confident enough to apply for an actual paid position in those roles.)

If what you do is reasonably widespread I think you're fine to just focus on that.

> 4. Is my timing bad? Is the current climate not well suited for someone like me to get back into the industry (though I have a feeling that no climate would be conducive to someone in my position.)

Maybe. Maybe not. Ultimately, you're never going to have perfect circumstances in life, so worrying about whether they're ideal right now is only something you need to do if you have meaningful alternatives. It sounds like you don't really have those, so why worry?

I don't think you need to go to a bootcamp, I recommend just getting your CV out there and seeing how it shakes out. If you get no traction, you can always drill into things then and try and debug.

4 years career gap is not uncommon for a mother of two, so your situation is definitely not unusual and not a red flag of any sort. I personally wouldn’t care much about it as long as you can show your skills on the interview. My advice would be to catch up with some modern stack and look for a junior to mid-level position in some established company, ideally European one — they usually respect work-life balance more. Don’t try to get a lot of money quickly, build confidence in yourself first and make sure you have a job that doesn’t stress you out. Look for diverse and inclusive teams, they have less potential for developing toxic culture than boys-only friday-pizza-and-beer ones.

What stack to choose? I’d go for the one that offers more choice (i.e. good old Java), but you may also follow the Haskell advice - maybe there are great teams in this field too.

Honestly just interview around. Worst case it’s some practice and interesting conversations.

My primary question would be what has changed since you were last working in the industry - whatever the answer is, it would need to convince me that you wouldn't leave after a year or two or would be likely to need another long break.

Glad you are doing better! Burn out is no joke and health is hard to regain, so you made the right choice in my book!

In terms of confidence, practice is what worked for me. Write code in your domain, see how it goes. You’ll probably feel rusty, but core principles should come back. Consider contributing to an open source project or as other suggested small gigs to practice/build up connections.

For interviewing, again have to practice - this means getting out there and talking to prospective employers. Starting is often the hardest part, but then you have to keep at it.

Good luck!!!

What have you done for the last 4 years, surely something? I would simply summarize those activities, spend some time ramping up on any technical gaps you might have and start applying. You'll quickly learn through interviewing what areas you feel light on and can then iteratively start improving.

Get going, simple as that.

you're fine. Sure lots of stuff changes in four years, but plenty more doesn't change. Start applying to stuff that looks good right now, and in the meantime work on porfolio/personal projects using the kinds of tools you want to use and get better yet.

If someplace is too leetcodey in their interview process, you probably don't want to work there anyways. Tell them up front in the first "get to know you" interview that you don't like whiteboard coding but are happy to talk about code and explain the details of things you've done. If that's a dealbreaker for them, that's good, it's a good filter for a place that would probably be unhealthy anyways.

Ultimately nobody cares what tools or tech stack or methodology or anything like that. If you can build stuff that works, you'll find work.

Wouldn't bother with a bootcamp. Everyone's doing that. Possibly try slightly junior position first to get a foot in the door, then work your way up, either by being promoted internally or fixing your CV so that you could hop jobs at that point. When I got back into IT after 2 yrs out, I worked for a start-up. They struggled to hire as they had insufficient cash to pay much, had no pension plan at all. This got all my skills back into shape again. After 15 months there I moved to a much better job and "the rest is history". Never underestimate what you can do with working somewhere that underpays. (probably as a temporary measure, of course)

Your background looks great for infra/sysadmin/devops types roles. Of course these are not the same thing. But IME 'infra' is harder to learn, and there's a big gap in the market for people who know what they're doing. Everybody and their grandmother is trying to learn things like AWS, passing exams and failing to get jobs because they have no idea about basic networking concepts. If I were you I'd go for these roles. Focus on your strengths. I don't think these roles would need leetcode either - why would they? You're not a 'programmer'.

You really want to get into tech tech after that convalesence?

How about starting with just a regular day tech job city, state, federal, public industry, old tech (hp, ibm, etc) and work 9-5? If that gets boring, your CV at least doesn't look empty and you can go to night school. All those environments are bleeding old guard and need youts willing to chase the CTOs latest buzzwords that will make the CV edgier.

Yes, it's not move fast break things, but it is running your 401K, bank, hospital, infrastructure, water system... all the things that matter when you look up from your phone.

I would suggest doing exactly what you’re doing here but reaching out to hiring managers to talk to them about what it would take for them to consider you.

If you reach out asking for help on getting back into the market and start some conversations about your real world experience and what you already do know it may help getting your foot in the door.

Go ask via LinkedIn for 15 minute chats with some leaders, come prepared with poignant questions and suggest keeping in touch. Referrals go a long way here and building up some relationships will help.

1. I would do some kind of coding that is externally forced (where you can't hand-wave away the hard parts). Whether that's Advent of Code, Leetcode, codewars, codeforces, hackerrank, or others. Consider taking online courses, following online tutorials on adjacent areas that you've never looked at before. Consider getting a couple of the easy AWS certs. You don't have to be able to do Leetcode hard problems to have a job in industry, but you probably should be able to do 80+% of the easy ones.

2. Yes, but so what? It's not like you can change it without lying (which I do not recommend as I think being straightforward will serve you better practically and psychologically).

3. Applying for roles you're interested in, would enjoy, and are qualified for does not seem like a crazy plan. Whether there are 200K or 1M jobs in your consideration set, those are both more than high enough to apply to find the one that's next for you.

4. Yes, your timing is bad. So what? You can't change that either and so it doesn't impact your next steps, which are to get your skills back up to at least 90% of where they used to be, which will get your confidence back up to at least 75% of where it used to be, so get cracking on that.

Wishing circumstances were different will only burn daylight and runway. If you were competent before (I read nothing to suggest otherwise), you have the brain for it; you are sorely lacking in confidence and are probably a little rusty. Both of those are solvable with some directed practice.

Good luck!

Lie. Honestly (lol), if you lie about those 4 years and you are capable and a good fit to the company, who cares ? Just say you took a sabbatical last year for whatever reason, that's it. If someone wants to check, run, you don't want to work for them anyway.

> "Is my timing bad?"

No it's not. There never had been such a demand for developers, don't let yourself convince of the contrary because of some thousands of FAANG's layoffs. Thousands is nothing on the market.

There's a lot of bad employers, a lot of bad recruiters, and a lot of bad interviewers that will throw you right under the bus for any reason they can.

Below is my favorite response I've seen lately....

https://twitter.com/terminallyOL/status/1622571890513526784/...

My thoughts: your timing is bad. I also took the last year off to recover from burnout and this is the worst I've ever seen the market. But since you have experience it's still doable.

Since the market is bad you'll have a harder time getting responses even if you were currently employed. Try to tailor your resume for the job (I know, really common advice but right now its not optional).

Then the first question you'll get is what were you doing the last 4 years. Nobodys really wants to know, just brainstorm a good sounding reason. Health concerns, relatives, you started a startup or something, whatever.

And then interviews. Slight positive note, Leetcode problems were starting to slowly decline and being replaced with more practical programming interviews so you may get lucky there. I'd say only study leetcode once you have an interview setup. Failed interviews are practice too.

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Keep in mind I've been where I'm at for about as long as you've been away -- the ground has surely changed since either of us saw it last.

With that said, just apply/get in the mechanics of it. You have a lot of runway, and I think the 'being employable' dance people go through with Leetcode/etc is over the top.

I don't buy this performative dance thing -- ridiculously unlikely problems, take home work, etc. I've never had to go beyond a few conversations where ability and fit is assessed.

Personally I've done well having very little projects to show and no formal education for this work, largely by filtering who I apply for -- aided largely by my network.

As an SRE/Operations person, the most 'code' I can show anyone would be Ansible roles/playbooks I've written, but it hasn't been a challenge.

At a certain point I think the biggest concern is, 'are there foundations we can work with?'

Congrats on unplugging and recovering your health which I think is severely overlooked until it is too late. Heres to it only getting better now. Now I may not have the most palatable news. Il preface this by saying it is not even fair and you don't deserve this roll of the dice that is shortsightedness by employers and the current market conditions.

Firstly what is your financial situation (eg buffer, health insurance, expenses etc). Il assume (and pray) that you are financially unencumbered if you were able to take time off to take care of yourself.

Now to the 4 points-

1. Leetcode and side projects. Good news is these are actually opposite. Companies that value one generally don't care about the other. So depending on your preference of companies and areas of passion you can see which to focus on. If time is not of the essence I'd suggest focussing on networking (say 10-20% or your time) to see what areas are hot, intersect with your passion and build something to get your brand and visibility on.

2. Short stints are hard to manage but assume you are managing to get calls to talk to a real person (recruiter, manager etc) be upfront and show how you grew in the 4 year break. Imo a resume can only tell so much. You can show a much better picture. Show what you learnt and what enlightenment you attained so that your next stint will be a huge killer! Doing (1) above well can come really handy.

3. So the kind of roles you used to do (some backend, some net admin) may not be much of the thing these days (at least in tech and startups?). So a bit of learning will be needed. Here is where #1 and investment is needed (depending on your urgency). Without this upskilling or learning or showing what you are passionate about (with artifacts) your ability to #2 is going to be weak.

4. Yes market timing sucks and is largely out of your control.

So it comes down to what is your urgency and in the best case scenario if you had say 6 months what are you willing to commit to?

Been there, done that. I burned out completely 10+ years ago to the point where I wasn't able to understand the simplest text. Luckily my wife earned enough that I could stay at home with kids and I was househusband (is it a word?) for two years. I didn't look at any IT related stuff during these years and this was a right decision at least for me.

For all other points I'd say "It really depends on location and culture", but I have some words to say about 1. Don't afraid to start low to rebuild your confidence. I was at expert level before burnout, but started at user support level when I returned. It helped enormously to get my confidence back. I wouldn't been able to do that if I would have to start immediately from the position/level I left.

After an extended period of unemployment, it's easy to get mired in the present. One exercise I did when starting a job search was a SCAR excercise. SCAR stands for situation, consequence, action, result. Look back on your ENTIRE career, from day 1, and find situations you faced where you solved a problem and benefitted the company in the process. You'll find experience where you used your skills to bring value to the company, which helps with those open-ended "tell me about a time when you..." questions, and reframe your mindset from "I've been out of work" to "I have a lot to offer".

First you should try to see if you still like what you were doing and what burnt you out in the first place. If you still do then there are loads of video tutorials to help you out cover the gap. This will take at least a month to get back in shape. Don't bother applying before as you won't be ready and might fail one interview you could have succeeded by being more prepared. Train for interviews and ask the correct questions. You need to be prepared to the questions about those years and how quick you can get back to your feet. They will want to know if a burnout can still happen.

For system you can always try to get a certification.

Also you need to know if you're still capable of working 8 hours a day.

Good luck

I'd recommend creating a website with a portfolio of projects.

The portfolio should include a section for each project, summarizing what tech stack you used, the year you finished the project, the name & 1 sentence on the project's purpose.

With a link to the code on github/gitlab, and a link to more in-depth page about the project.

This way you'd have a summary, links to code, and an in-depth page about each project. On the website you might also include info about your professional background, education, & personal interests outside of work.

I have such a website, and it has helped me get hired.

Doing some little bits of smaller work for smaller companies can help get the CV moving again.

I've had gaps, and done that - find bits of work that are a few days or a few weeks, then it's easier from there.

We hired a guy who had been out for a decade. We structured it as a three-month contract at a cheap rate, with promise to hire full time at a more normal salary if he worked out. This minimized our downside if he didn't work out. (It also minimized his downside. If we had tried to rip him off, he would have three months of current work on his resume.)

If you run into potential employers who are afraid to take a chance on you because of the four-year gap, you might propose something like that.

I’m in finance, and cover a lot of tech stuff. This is where I see the most hiring still happening:

1. Non-tech. To varying extents, every large company is a tech company now. They were all shut out by Big Tech for 2 years. Walmart currently has over 1300 job openings with the word “software” in the title.

2. Battery startups. This is mostly not software, but they are hiring like mad.

3. AI startups. You may have noticed the gold rush atmosphere, and prospectors are needed.

4. Cloud services. Amazon laying off all over the company, but still hiring at AWS.

Good luck, which is always the most important ingredient.

I would try to learn some new skills where most people are still just getting started like how to apply ChatGPT to improve projects/codebases/your area of past work experience and then apply to small companies/startups. Try to get interviews and treat each as an opportunity to a) get hired if you ace it, or b) learn some stuff that will help you in the next interview.

Even though you may not feel good at LeetCode type questions, study algorithms and data structures anyways!

Try watching YouTube videos, reading 'Cracking the Coding Interview' and get familiar with the programing language you are most competent with already or are trying to get a job with.

The best way to make up for a gap in resume or short stints at other companies is to prove you have the technical knowledge anyways.

1. Just apply. Start with regional companies. 2. Just apply. Tell them you could afford the time off and took it. What better time to be free than in your 20's? 3. Just apply. Do try to code though and see if it is still something you want to do. 4. You can't pick the timing and can't predict how things will be a year from now. Find a job before you NEED a job.

Something no one has mentioned is there are companies "looking for a bargain"/"diamond in the rough" when hiring.

It doesn't normally come up because many people who respond on HN tend to be elite, and those companies don't even make their radar.

You are the candidate they want because they have more leverage when making an offer.

Rather than list a gap, why not just say you were taking consulting projects for the last 4 years?

Honestly-- lie. It's none of their business. If they comment on the work hiatus and choppy history simply tell them it was family related. You had to take time off to take care of your family.

Start your own LLC, incorporated business, I'm sure you have done other side projects. It would add to your credibility and fill the gap in your resume. This is coming from someone who has been on long-term disability for three years and re-entering the workforce.

my 2c: i would suggest to make sure you have a decent portfolio online ( github/gitlab/bitbucket/whatever ) to include the link in your CV.

since your focus is web-backend, a nice "as original as possible" project following some design patterns of a REST API with microservices, JWS tokens, with unit-tests and automated integration/load testing on a rather modern architecture like Clean/Onion/Hexagonal that you can explain on a technical interview the hows && whys of your choices... then it's a numbers' game: send CVs to every open position you can find.

There is a certain number of applications/ interviews you need to go through to get hired. I can’t tell you what that number is. If I were in your position I’d get to counting right now. Good luck!

Get some certs in current tech and go for contract jobs. The hiring bar for contract is lower, but they'll drop you faster too if it's not working.

Even an entry level AWS or GCP cert is good.

Pound the pavement by day, open source projects by night. No projects to speak of? Remedy that.

Terrible time to try to get back into web backend.

Maybe you should consider becoming a plumber?

Seriously...

1 year worth of runway? Why not start hacking on a revenue generating indie project to 1) beef up your skillset and 2) extend your runway. Who knows, you could apply to YC with it!

A few of the popular buzzwords to start a project with: Next.js, Prisma, Supabase

As someone who went through a sabbatical, you must first know and acknowledge that your full time job now is to find a job, which means navigating the processes involved.

> Q1. What should I do to get to a point where I feel confident enough to actually send in applications? (I have never really been any good at LeetCode-type problems and have no personal projects to speak of.)

1. The tone of this question, previous sentences and being the first would indicate you have a sense of dread, get rid of that! Assuming you worked for more than 2 yrs and you're already in your 30s then you have work experience and ARE competent enough. Yes, tech is bleeding edge but a lot of that is entirely in tooling and not the end all be all of being employed in the tech industry. The game "actually send in applications" is... surprise! sending in applications. Your best bet is to go quantity vs quality. Especially since you're under the guise of having been on a break. Forget leetcode for now, you need to see if you can get onto interviews asap. So here's what you need:

- a back story (background and what you bring, someone mentioned "what amazing qualities you bring in" here) - a resume - Review and Revise your story and resume. When it comes to the application process storytelling is important especially when you get into an interview, so finalize this so you can easily answer the typical questions you'll likely deal with and everything makes sense to someone else. Ask your friends, partner, family to help you with this or just someone to listen to what you come up with it so it doesn't sound ridiculous. - Use a platform's quick apply feature (Indeed and LinkedIn have this). It's important as soon as you're done with the first three points above. You do this and let it rip, you can iterate throughout this process and you should iterate throughout this process.

> Q2. Will the 4-year gap and my choppy CV be a major hindrance to my hirability? (My employement history consists of 2 years at a consulting firm and 3 short startup stints of <1 year each.) If yes, how do I minimise its debilitating effects?

2. Short answer, no. Long answer-- No, you already have work experience so you have already proven your competent enough to hold a job and be of value to an employer. What you'll really need to do is be able to pinpoint what skills you can bring to an employer. You're right in a sense to minimise the debilitating effects so since you have short stints of <1 year each, I advise if it's 6-9 months then use the year you worked and don't bother writing the months on your resume. Anything else lower you can put the months like Month-Month YYYY. Ideally if you have some niche you're good at you would highlight that significantly in your resume. Use quantifiable achievements with specifics like "Lead development of revamped UI component that lowered incidents by 16.5% using web hooks and bespoke API compatibility with connected DeWalt drills".

> Q3. I feel like I have the best chance of getting hired in the kind of roles I used to work at and those are the ones I'm interested in as well but in doing so am I restricting myself to a limited number of positions? Should I be spending my time in expanding my knowledge areas? (Although I feel like I know too little of anything else to ever feel confident enough to apply for an actual paid position in those roles.)

3. Since you're unemployed, a reminder that you're job now is to get a job. It's perfectly reasonable to take on a similar role as your previous role as long as you are aware and disciplined to either leave to promote yourself and/or commit to promoting internally (best to commit to this before starting the job and in agreement with supervisor+HR, get it in writing). If you choose to take this route then you will restrict yourself so this is entirely up to you.

Remember, fake it till you make it is the norm in the professional world, if you are willing to play that card then you can aim higher with the roles you're going for, you're going to be selling yourself anyway so this will be a major part when you're going through this process.

Regardless, if you aren't already read and update yourself with any tech you previously used and are looking to use. You should ALWAYS be spending time in expanding your knowledge areas. Whether its related to your job or your interests.

> Q4. Is my timing bad? Is the current climate not well suited for someone like me to get back into the industry (though I have a feeling that no climate would be conducive to someone in my position.)

4. Not really, you may find a really good opportunity because of the current climate. A lot of interviewers will be going through and looking for quality hires with the increase of free agents. Competition is there but that's the norm no matter the climate. And please stop the negativity, no matter what goes on externally you have to deal with your position, you wanted to move out of that position and you submitting this question for all of HN to see is one positive step out of that. You have a runway. Hell you're already on the runway. So consider yourself a couple of steps away, stop and look around is fine but keeping going forward. Find activities that bring back your confidence. Good luck stranger!

First, the most obvious: bang the drum in your network to see if anyone you know is hiring. Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Just post everywhere.

If that doesn't work, you'll need to go through application processes. Smaller companies are hiring now and larger companies are laying people off, so you'll need to optimize for getting hired at smaller companies. Smaller companies tend to interview for the specific skills that they need as opposed to hiring generalists. Between frontend/backend/adminstration, you'll want to specialize in one of them to make it easier to get through the interviews.

You'll need to get through the funnel at each phase. To get your foot in the door, you may need something beyond your experience that separates you from other devs. A portfolio is a good example: build a project or three in the specialty that you picked. For example, if you want to be a frontend engineer, build some UIs that have some justification for using nontrivial React techniques, write tests, write a good README that points to the files and lines of code that use different techniques, throw them up on Netlify, and post the code to Github. You can add a "portfolio" section below your work experience section on your resume to highlight your recent work.

You'll also need to get through the technical and culture interviews. For the technical interview, you'll probably want to be able to solve at least Leetcode medium problems (not everyone expects you to be able to do these. But many do). Just try them. If you can't solve them, just go into the discussions and keep reading through different solutions with names like "simple with good explanation and comments" until you understand how to solve it, and then make sure that you can code it.

You should also search for "$specialty interview questions" and be able to solve any of them quickly. You really want to polish this - I went through the interviewing process recently and failed a React interview when I hadn't really done much frontend coding in the past year. I thought with 20 years of coding experience I could just wing it, and I was wrong! You really want to make sure that you can solve simple problems in under 40 minutes with minimal searching.

To get through the culture interview questions, you're going to need to find a way to address your experience gap. My advice is to find a way to frame everything positively when possible. Talk about the positives from your time away. Talk about what you learned about yourself that makes you a stronger engineer now. Talk about how energized you are to come back. Whatever it takes. If you're like "oh man I was so burned out and I had so many health problems and now I'm running out of money so I have to work again," they will probably just pass on you. If you say "I got to the point where I could take a step back and address long-lingering health problems, so I made the decision that I had to. It took longer than I thought, but I'm so happy they're behind me, and I was able to use the time to reconnect with friends and family. I'm excited to get started on my career again, and here's why I'm the perfect match for your company", you'll be more likely to pass.

If you struggle, focus on the part of the funnel where you're running into problems: getting a call back, getting past the recruiter, getting past the hiring manager, getting past the coding interview, getting past the culture interview, etc.

Best of luck.