Hello Everyone,

I live in Germany and I'm interviewing continously from a few months in order to secure a good position and compensation that reflects my experience and skills. I have a master's degree from Germany (top-tier university with good grade), and about 6 years of Java experience (with non-springboot tech stack).

I get contacted frequently by companies and I also apply to several companies that I want to work with. I have also received quite a few offers that I rejected because the tech stack / job / compensation / level did not fit my expectations. And obviously, more than the offers that I have rejected, I have been rejected several times.

During the several interviews that I have given, I'm of the strong opinion that initial rounds (HR, initial tech screen) are more focused on whether the candidate has experience in relevant tech stack (springboot, microservices, aws, docker, kubernetes), rather than judging the skill of the candidate. I'm a fan of FAANG companies here because they test candidate based on DSA and System Design which I believe is the core foundation to build really good applications. On, the other side there are companies which reject saying you don't known 'X' or 'Y' tech stack. I feel I'm losing out on these companies as they have a fixated mindset based on tech stack. They are not convinced if I learnt the tech stack they desire on my own through online materials. All they want to know is if I use this tech stack at my current work. For obvious reasons, at my current job we have legacy systems in place and cannot switch to latest tech stack for business reasons.

FYI : I always quote a above average salary when I'm asked my salary expectations as I'm of the opinion that my experience of these many years isn't of low worth just because I have not worked with a particular tech stack.

At the back of each candidate's mind is that they want to secure a good job for all the hard work that they have done. I want to use the power of leetcode community here and discuss constructive and practical ideas that help me and other people with the same question. How have you secured a good position and compensation when tech stack was a roadblock?

What path do you take to secure a good job? Expertise in DSA and System Design is one path to take (less jobs, but high pay). Being an expert on a particular tech stack is another path to take (many job offer possibilities).