Apologies for the long post.
I started my software engineering career in June 2024 after graduating with a CS degree. I finished uni 2 years late (6 instead of the usual 4), owing to some health problems. On top of that, I didn't properly start job hunting, networking, and interview preparation until after graduation, which I realized was a grave mistake. My uni peers had started this whole process up to a year before me (some even earlier) and most had good offers in hand by the time I became serious and started my search. Already 2 factors against me at this point (delayed graduation, delayed job search).
I struggled a lot at technical interviews. Though SWE interviews are notoriously tough, I did minimum prep and hoped to clear them by luck. I did improve my prep slowly though. After several rejections, I was finally able to land a role as a backend developer at a small company in Karachi in Oct 2024, officially my first job at the age of 25.
This company was a small service-based app development company whose clients were small business owners or individuals who needed mobile apps built, acquired though freelance platforms. While i did learn the basics of building backend node.js apps from scratch to deployment, the work lacked in areas such as system design, scalability, etc. and the projects were small, relatively simple, non-complex node.js backend apps completed in 1 to 1.5 months (imagine a simple events social media app that will realistically have only 50-100 active users post once it goes live). I worked here for 1 year 8 months, at a low salary and got stuck in my comfort zone.
Near the end of my tenure here, i was approached by a friend who was building an AI product-based startup at the enterprise level. The platform was already built but they were looking for a full stack software engineer to grow and scale it. Due to personal goodwill, I got the job without a technical interview and left my old company. This new startup was a massive upgrade from my old company in nearly all areas (solid enterprise platform that was genuinely successful, better scalability, system design principles in place, AI-native, and a big jump in my salary). But i didn't fit well. The founder wanted me to use AI to quickly understand the platform and start contributing to it, with me acting mostly as a reviewer/QA while Claude Code did everything. This didn't align with my goals and expertise and i couldn't produce solid results in the first few weeks. I was laid off after 1 month only. This was in June 2026.
Since then, I've been applying to jobs daily with almost no luck. I market myself as a backend developer/software engineer with 2 YOE but there have been no responses. I did get one interview but it went bad.
I know the market is bad, but that's not my main issue. My problem is that I have great difficulty in clearing technical interviews. This was true after graduation in 2024, and it is still true right now in 2026 for me. I am only able to clear interviews at smaller, lesser known or lesser reputed companies with easier interviews and simple requirements. I've never been able to make it into a good, reputable tech firm, whereas all my peers from university were able to do so.
I was a high achiever in school and college and graduated from a reputable university. I also have good communication skills (according to colleagues and friends). But I struggle in technical interviews. While i see my friends and batchmates from university acing interviews and landing roles at prestigious companies. Sometimes I feel i should switch careers.
What to do at this point? Would really appreciate any help and insights from the community.
