Well, how ironic we're in the same boat, it seems. Only I can't get hired because I'm 40 and have many years of experience and everyone seems to assume I'm either a snowflake or will cost them. Granted, I can only afford remote positions at the moment, but then I'm not asking for a lot of money either and I'm fairly easy going. I sure have my preferences, but they're few. What's really making it all unbearable is this leetcode and multiple-round-interviews are just exhausting and they don't lead anywhere, it seems. Nobody's even looking at your published open-source code (which is what I used to do first when I used to hire people). I don't really know if I'll ever work as a software-engineer ever again. Reduced to a hobby, I suppose.