I&#x27;ve been a professional programmer since 2000. I work remotely and I&#x27;ve had a number of accomplishments over my career. Always gotten positive feedback from coworkers&#x2F;managers. I&#x27;d planned to change jobs at the end of 2015 and I also hit 40 recently. I&#x27;ve focused on remote jobs. I feel it is important to grow and aim above where I am currently at.<p>My search started 6 months ago. I&#x27;ve submitted 35 applications. 14 received no response. 9 responded with rejections. 3 had screening tests (e.g. HackerRank). 5 had code challenges of 8-12 hrs. Of the 5, 2 followed up with just a rejection. 2 continued on to more interviews. I did a paid trial project for 1 company. I interviewed with 8 companies. 6 went multiple rounds and 2 made it to final round interviews. More details here: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;pastebin.com&#x2F;R2BjGAiW.<p>After many hours, stress &amp; sacrifice, I am questioning my next steps. I assumed (based on the ‘hot’ the job market and many recruiter requests) I&#x27;d have offers in a month. I’ve never had such difficulty passing interviews in the past and it seems way harder than say 5 years ago. Seems like interviews are more geared towards evaluating junior engineers and deeply discount experience.<p>Any advice on where to go from here? Should I just persist? Is this age bias? Should I use a recruiter like TripleByte? Should I switch to consulting? I’ve read comments that networking is key. Being remote I don’t get a lot of face time &amp; my colleagues tend not to move often, limiting opportunities. Perhaps study CS fundamentals and interview with Google. I don’t want to relocate, but having it on the resume might help a lot.<p>I could really use some wisdom on how to move forward. Anyone know of career counseling for people like me? Anything constructive that the community can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Ask HN: How to proceed?