Hi everyone,

I’m writing this post with genuine hope that someone here might be able to guide me or point out what I might be doing wrong.

I graduated in 2024 and soon after graduation I joined a well-known product-based company as a SWE-1. Before that I also had prior internship experience, so I started my full-time role with a decent amount of exposure to real production systems.

Unfortunately, around mid-2025 my role got impacted due to internal reorgs and product shutdown, and I was laid off along with others on the team.

Since then I’ve been trying my best to prepare and get back into the industry. I’ve been:

• Grinding DSA regularly
• Learning and practicing system design
• Preparing my past projects and work experience discussions
• Applying consistently to SDE-1 / SWE-1 roles

To be honest, this period has been mentally and emotionally exhausting.

In the last ~8 months, I have only been able to get 5–6 interviews. The strange part is that most of the interviews themselves have gone well.

Some examples:

• I’m generally able to clear DSA rounds comfortably

• Design and project discussion rounds also go well

• For two startup companies, I made it to the final round and cleared it

  • One company ghosted me after the final round
  • For the other one, the position got filled before I could confirm my decision

Since December 2025, I haven’t been able to get any interviews at all, which is honestly starting to scare me.

At this point, I have a resume gap of 8+ months, and I’m worried it might be affecting my chances.

A bit about my background:

Experience: ~1 YOE (Full-time) + internship
Tech Stack:

• React
• JavaScript
• Java (Spring)
• Go
• MySQL
• BigQuery
• GCP

I have mainly worked on full-stack systems in production.

I’m also not planning to go for a Master’s or MBA right now because I don’t want to put additional financial burden on my family. I’ve been surviving on my savings for the past 8+ months, which adds to the pressure.

At this point I’m genuinely trying to understand:

• Am I positioning my resume incorrectly?
• Is the resume gap hurting me more than I expect?
• Should I shift focus from DSA to something else?
• Should I be targeting different kinds of companies or roles?

If anyone here has gone through something similar or has advice on:

• improving interview callbacks
• dealing with resume gaps
• positioning 1 YOE candidates better
• or anything else I might be missing

I would be extremely grateful.

I’m posting this with real hope and trust in this community. Any honest feedback, suggestions, or even tough advice would mean a lot. Please upvote so that it can reach people.

Thank you for reading.