These were positions I am qualified for, and that I know I would have succeeded at. I've been told it would take me 6 months to start contributing to a Python codebase even though I have significant experience in the language and the problem domain for that project. I've been told I have too little experience mentoring a team despite doing just that at my last job. I've been told I don't have enough JS experience for a position that did not ask for any JS experience.

The market right now is poor for a developer without a fancy CS degree, or one without the luck of a golden pedigree from a previous high profile company.

An outsider perspective: 12 in-person interviews is a high amount of interviews without receiving an offer. I've failed my fair share of interviews but never that many in such a short amount of time.

If I were in your position I would try to get as much information as possible why you weren't accepted. Anecdotally, Austin should be a promising location for tech hiring. It may be a personality clash or a lack of preparation. I have bombed several interviews because I didn't take the time to practice Google-style interview questions. It took me 2 months of practice before I was ready to interview successfully in SF, coming from the East Coast.

Fancy CS degrees and golden pedigrees get your foot in the door. The technical interview is up to the applicant to pass or fail. It looks like you get your foot in the door pretty well. Now it's time to focus on what you can do to convince these businesses that you will help make them money.

I always ask for reasons for the rejections, but I rarely get a response. Some will give insight (as I stated in my original comment) but the vast majority will not tell you any reason.

I am just offering a piece of data to refute the "negative unemployment" claim and its ilk.

"Practice Interviews" are a thing. Have you considered trying such out?

I haven't done a practice interview, but another poster offered to help me with that. I may take them up on their offer.

This experience is not even at odds with the original quote from the recruiter - when the recruiter says "qualified", all they mean is "able to succeed in the hiring process companies are using". Unfortunately, that definition of "qualified" often doesn't have much in common with the usual definition of "capable of doing good work". The parent commenter may well be qualified in the second way but not in the first.

It's unlikely you'll get a response like that after a 'no hire' from legit companies. They avoid giving that kind of feedback because of legal ramifications.

I did finally get a position. It sucked in a lot of ways, and my commute really sucked. But after a year, I was coming from a recognizable, local name and that appeared to make all the difference. So now that I actually like my job, I filter head-hunter mail to a separate mailbox and write pro-forma 'no thanks' in batches.

[1] I am mostly honest in my work history. I suppose I lie by omission - I don't want to ever write Java again, so I've purged references to it from my resume. But it seems that a lot of folks find creative definitions for words like 'experience'. I know some whom I didn't hire did, and people I know are not terribly embarrassed by admitting it. It would be interesting to see some anonymous survey stats on the question.

As a guy who's been on both sides of the metaphorical table I know what it's like to bomb but it's almost worse when you feel like you did well and then really have no clue, so I empathize with you for that.

From the other side, I implement an everybody says yes hiring scheme. If an interviewer says no we talk about why. We've had most technical no's overturned when the other interviewers relate a positive interaction in a similar technical area and we come to a conclusion that it was as simple as how the question was asked, or maybe that is a specific weakness made up for in another area.

The no's that are almost never overturned are the ones where an interviewer just didn't seem to like the candidate personally. I don't expect everyone to be friends, bristly people are fine if they're generally capable of some team play, but if someone walks out of that room saying I couldn't stand to spend more time with that person than my family, that's it- we're not going to hire.

I don't want everyone on the team drinking from the same kool aid, and we don't have to be friends or even that friendly. We have to be able to work together and get shit done, and if one of my employees I trust enough to do interviews says no, then even a very talented developer isn't going to join the team.

With all that being said, I don't know what kinds of teams you're interviewing for, it may be a niche thing or it could be they don't like you- it's a relationship though, you will eventually find a decent match.

If you want to do a trial run through with me with a no bullshit no PC response as to my opinion on it I'd be happy to carve out some time. Message me on Twitter @ashurexm and we can set something up. You've got to have pretty good skills to get 12 in person interviews in a shortish amount of time.

Also a couple of somewhat related questions.

1) How well are you at reading the interview outcome? Do you leave these interviews thinking you will be made an offer or do you leave with a pretty good idea that a no is coming your way?

2) Rather than waiting for a rejection and then asking "why not", have you tried asking for the "why not" during the actual interview? At the end of almost every interview someone will wrap it up saying something along the lines, "Do you have any more questions?" I have had plenty of candidates ask me (and I myself ask if I'm the candidate), "What do you think I could have done differently today to improve my chance of success with your organization?"

This is usually met with a more honest feedback than the ask after rejection for numerous reasons.

1) Less HR cover my ass BS; after the rejection companies are worried anything they say could be used to sue them.

2) More people in the room so you may get more than one perspective.

3) You haven't yet been rejected so you may also hear some positives; "Well you really impressed us on X, but you could focus more on Y." This can help you to play to your strengths in the future as well as areas you need to work on.

I gave up on trying to gauge the outcome of the interviews. Most of them I thought I did very well on, some above average, and a few I knew went poorly. All of them had the same outcome.

One interview battery in particular stands out. I interviewed at least 6 times over two weeks, some 1:1, some 1:many. I interviewed with the team, an unrelated employee for a culture interview, the VP of engineering, and a C level exec. All felt great, all feedback from the recruiter was positive, but after everything was done I was told the position "wouldn't challenge me enough" or something similar. I was devastated.

I have never thought about asking for interview feedback during the interview. That is a good idea.

I'll send you a message soon, it would be helpful to get an outside opinion.

I've had a number of occasions where the feedback was overwhelmingly positive and I just knew I was having a great run only to not get an offer and an explanation via the recruiter (mine or theirs) that they just couldn't afford me. This is a totally valid reason, but I usually make it clear that $X or the general vicinity plus other considerations is the starting point and give them an opportunity to bag out early- so this is an outcome that pisses me off with the caveat that I've had the budget reduced for a position mid-hiring process so I know it's not necessarily BS or intentional time wasting. The one time it happened to me I let them know for real what the reason was and they wound up working for us a year later.

Whenever I say someone's too expensive internally it has meant that they don't come armed with the tools I'd expect an $Y per year salary would warrant. Sometimes they're our best candidate and we just "pay and pray", other times my feedback is just that, "We don't value what you bring to the table at the same level you do," and we try to negotiate.

The flight risk is the trickier one, rarely will people even hint at this. They're either worried that you're going to be bored quickly (which comes up a lot depending on the role) or that you seem to be chasing money and/or titles.

If it's the former I specifically tell them we like them, we want to make an offer, but we're worried that the day to day work may be unfulfilling in the long run based on what they've made us think about them during the interviews.

By the way, my anecdotal track record for this is pretty good- these people are usually gone in 18 months, which is just about the time you hit your stride and go on auto-pilot plus a few months to figure out you're really effing bored. I can't recall anyone we've thought this about that stuck around past 30 months.

The job hopping and money chasing is what it is. If it's true or not, you can't really unbrand yourself of it when they perceive it. I don't begrudge anyone for doing it, I have never been at the same company (whether for myself or others) for more than 4 years. I think everyone should be looking out for the best interest of their careers and families, your tenure at a company doesn't guarantee a thing, just do your best and be ethical while you're there. Be that as it may, if I've got two generally equivalent candidates and one is perceived to be more likely to stick around, s/he'll get the first offer.

As to job hopping, I have worked at 3 companies my entire career, each about 2.5 years. I had good reasons to move each time, and I didn't do so lightly or recklessly, but there's nothing I can do to change that. With my experience job hunting, I'd be very happy working at the same place for a long time.

Sometimes it is purely economic - I had an offer withdrawn back in 2009 and later had it reoffered when the company was in better times.

It sucks to have something go sour when the interview process has positive momentum

Along the lines of your "offer withdrawn"; in 2004 I had an offer from Acclaim. We agreed on a number and HR said they would be sending me over the official offer letter and start date by the end of the week.

The week comes and goes, but no contact. The following Monday I give a call and leave a brief follow up voicemail, "Hey, haven't received the offer letter, just checking in." (something along those lines). Finally about three weeks later I get a call from this poor HR woman; she tells me that Acclaim has declared bankruptcy and she is really sorry she didn't contact me earlier, but that she had shown up to work one day and the doors to the office were literally padlocked shut and under guard since their assets had been seized for auction.

For a stretch we probably did 70 interviews a year for 3-4 years spread across 9-15 participants. It seems like every year there was at least one HELL NO candidate on personality by someone.

I think there's at least some bias against people who have taken time off because they appear comfortable not having a job and therefore the company has less leverage over them.

I think a lot of it is the new "100x developer" mentality.

Companies have become insanely picky. I've had lots of interviews, many of which went really well that never panned out. I've completed significant projects for companies, and I have some open source software out there too.

Companies have become convinced that 99% of developers are as valuable as a pile of dog shit they just stepped in, and its changing things. If you're bad at marketing, you're in for rough times ahead.

Do you have any connections like that? People who you worked with, who know you are good, and want to work with you again?

It is a lot easier to find work when the people hiring know that you can do the job because they have seen you do it before.

Folks in the latter category don't need 6 months for any Python-based system. Folks in the former category are useful in certain ways, but difficult to plug into a larger team, and if companies know enough to know they need a "Python" developer, that's because someone technical already picked Python, and the position is to work with at least that one other technical person.

It's likely similar with JS, Ruby, and other "newer" languages that have reputations for being "easy to pick up".

Graduated from UC Berkeley, Regents Scholar, Computer Science. Depths of the 1989-93 recession, I graduated in 1991. Had 4 job offers! All 4 were scut work jobs. But I got my foot in the door when the rest of the economy was AWFUL. "Dang, I was the top of my class in CompSci (software) at Berkeley, yet I cannot get a better coding job offer than these 4?"

LATER I REALIZED: The recession started in 1988-89. By 1991 when I graduated there were a lot of HIGHLY EXPERIENCED and TALENTED software engineers looking for work. The Supply of engineers was high; and demand was low.

So yeah, I got 4 scut job offers because firms had their pick of great, experienced talent. The fact is, I was lucky in 1991 to have gotten 4 offers at that time; George Bush the 1st lost the election in '92 because of the bad economy.

The 1989-93 recession was BAAAD. Not as bad as 2008-09 but lots of homes in foreclosure, hiring was zero.

When 1993 rolled around, the supply of talent had been TAKEN, the tech economy was hiring. It became MUCH easier to switch to an area of software completely unrelated to my old job.

But then 1999 rolled around -- the big crash, the Dot-Com Bubble Burst. Now, despite 8 years of experience, again the supply of engineers was very high and it became difficult to get a position.

If the Supply of Talent looking for work is High -- 12 in-person interviews and no job is MUCH more likely than in boom times.

Take off the blinders people. If it feels like it suddenly has become more of an effort to get a job, MAYBE the supply of talent on the market has increased.

When I hire and the talent pool has swelled, I can sit back and be picky. I have the leverage. I am the Demand for talent. You are the Supply of talent.

If it seems harder/longer to get hired all of a sudden despite what you've described -- "highly relevant experience" and a few years in the industry --

it's quite possible that you're competing with MORE ENGINEERS for that position just now.

And as I hiring manager, I know dam well the resume quality has jumped and there are more quality resumes than I've seen in the recent past.

"Ah-HA! I finally have some leverage over the applicant pool! I'm gonna be picky!"

Or "pedigree" in the form of recent experience of certain high-value technologies or frameworks (as if most of these weren't trivially learnable).

I also have the sense that there's a "J-curve" of sorts with regard to demand: certain categories of developers are deemed "hot" and are in very high demand, for certain reasons; for others, it might as well be the mid-2000s, for you -- especially if your skillset reads like it would have been "hot" in that era.

And as usual, should you have the misfortunate to be unemployed for whatever reason, for any lengthy of time -- you're fucked, of course.

So, if there was a legitimate tech job shortage, it would be trickling down to more applicants coming to us (which has happened in the past). Right now, I'm not seeing it.

So, for example, if I say "I can't hire anyone that meets your 'expert' qualifications for $65K/year", there's nothing my supervisor, or his supervisor, or the CIO, or the agency director, or even the governor can do; other than recommend we switch to using contractors which has its own downsides.

There's been an increasing push that has been heard for IT salaries to be "re-evaluated", but it's suffering from politics and all the usual high-level government malaise. It'll be at least 2-3 more years before anything happens, and there's a 50/50 chance that the outcome is "we should pay you more, but we won't."

That's the same excuse they've used for not giving "cost of living" increases most years. :)

In other words, why not do what the military does, and branch off a civilian subcontractor?

Can't fix that broken of a compensation model without significant work (having intelligent representatives run for office).

In state agencies, that's a pretty good way to get yourself and the people involved fired (and possibly worse), since its essentially a conspiracy to defraud the government.

or send official business to my state email: Kollmas (at) wsdot.wa.gov

Usually it requires a mission critical task and an inability to hire. If it's important, the leaders will do what it takes to make things happen.

Some agencies hire exclusively junior devs and leave all the higher level architecture, etc, to contractors.

Our agency tries to hire almost exclusively senior devs, and has a real hard time of it. Getting junior devs is easier.

If you're interesting, go to careers.wa.gov and do some searchers. It will show all agencies and you can see salaries and requirements. Entry level developer position is generally ITS 3; ignore the "2 years experience" or whatever. We routinely hire ITS 3 positions with no formal experience, just with either some schoolwork or "learned on my own" programming, or both.

I went through this program and ended up working there for three years. Have recommended others go through it as well when they began pursuing careers in tech. Can't speak of it highly enough.

[1]: https://www.utexas.edu/its/analyst-training/