Confused about my career. Need Guidance

I have 2 years 6 months of experience in Software Development in my first and current organization. Here’s a timeline of my work till now:
Month 0-7: Automation testing was introduced in my organization for the first time and I worked on testing of the web applications using Selenium, TestNG, Jenkins and Maven.
Month 8- 14: Promoted as a Software Developer and learned Angular on my own as my organization started including Angular in new projects for the first time. I worked on 2 projects including Angular.
Month 15-18: Moved again to Integration testing because the testing team in my project (which included 2 members) wasn’t able to do their work properly.
Month 19-23: Switched to development of another product using Java and GWT.
Month 24-27: Switched to Development of two products using Angular and .NET Core and mentoring juniors in Integration Testing.
Month 28-30 (ongoing): Switched to another team in a project involving Angular and .NET Core. But this time, told specifically that I have to only mentor them for Development and Automation and don’t write any code. All I have to do is to create design document of new features, think of architecture to be followed while writing the code.

Now, I started giving interviews after 2 years 3 months and till now, I have appeared in 28 interviews, out of which I have cleared only 1 (in which I didn’t go because of too far location), didn’t proceed further in 4, in progress currently are two of them, whereas, in the rest, I got rejected.

I have holidays of even Saturdays and Sundays in my current organization and it feels very difficult for me to find time for interviews because I travel daily for 3.5 hours, sometimes I delay my interviews because of certain project delivery commitments. My current salary is low compared to the people of my experience. Now, I think that my market value is being decreased continuously because of the experience I have.
The reason being that I have given interviews for following profiles and have been rejected because of the reasons mentioned below:

  • Software Developer: In this profile, I got rejected because of not being able to solve problems associated with Data Structures and Algorithms.
  • Front End Developer: In this profile, I got rejected because some interviewers told me that they want a person who eats, drinks JavaScript everyday and should know JavaScript deeply. Some interviewers told me that I am experienced in Angular with Redux. But they want someone who is proficient in RxJS, which I’m not.
  • Java Developer: In this profile, I was rejected because they want a person experienced with Advanced Java or Spring or JDBC which I’m not because of current working experience. However, I’m strong in Core Java as it’s my primary language to answer questions involving Data Structures and Algorithms.

My database query part isn’t that strong and I haven’t dedicated enough time to learn it.

Now, I am confused which path should I take. I have 3 options in front of me.

  1. Learn Javascript, RXJS and appear for FrontEnd Developer interviews only.
  2. Learn Java (Core + Advanced), SQL, JDBC, Spring and start preparing for Backend developer interviews only.
  3. Learn both options 1 and 2 and prepare for Fullstack Developer interviews.

Option 3 looks extremely difficult because of learning different technologies. For all the options, I have to prepare for Data Structures and Algorithms questions also.

I’m quite confused on which path to take and I’m dejected at the same time because of continuous failure in interviews. Can anyone please guide me on which path should I take?

I want to get rid of my company which is paying me less, restricting me to write code and has 6 days working, which isn’t giving me enough time to do anything. I have inside me a hunger to code…!!!

That is a potentially dangerous question for you to ask. Many people will give you different answers, and you’ll be no better off in your decision.

Make a list of what you know, what you found easier to learn and use, and from that consider what in your options would fit best with those things, AND what interests you more. You know some JS, how long would you need to learn that deeper knowledge?

I would consider which option would be most suitable for me based on what I already know and want to learn, and which would give me the most satisfaction.

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I agree with @leebut, you should find out what interests you and pursue that path. Beyond that, I can offer these two bits of advice:

  1. Whatever path you choose, focus on that, become knowledgeable and gain indepth experience. It’s better to specialize than to have a wide generalization of skills. At least at the stage in your career in which you are now.

  2. As much as you can, write code daily. Your day job may not have you writing a lot of code, but that doesn’t mean you can’t write code outside of your day job. For instance, if you decide to focus on front end dev in Angular, you can contribute to open source projects for Angular. Become a contributor to Angular.

Tim

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I’d advise knowing enough full-stack to be reasonably familiar with the parts in a typical app, but whether you focus on front-end, back-end or full-stack really depends on your own personal calling. Front-end only tends to be more a designer role, and it’s one you’re only likely to see at larger companies that can afford to hire separate UI/UX people.

You mentioned knowing Angular. If you’re not talking about AngularJS (that is, Angular 1.x), then you do already know at least some RxJS, as Angular isn’t very useful without it. You probably got an interviewer who didn’t know the technical domain and didn’t know that RxJS is a core part of Angular, so you didn’t tick that box on their list. It happens, don’t let it get to you.

BTW, I hate those algorithm tests the big companies use. I could tell you about the real world applications of higher-kinded types, the Curry-Howard-Lambek isomorphism, SOLID, the Law of Demeter, row types, referential integrity, functional persistence, etc etc, but I’ll be dog damned if I can solve any more than a quarter of the Daily Coding Problem challenges in the comfort of my own home, let alone an interview setting.

Amazing contribution from everybody, and I would suggest this article to start planning your carreer path: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/2019-web-developer-roadmap/

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I don’t think FCC should be making career choices for you.

Find out what you like to do and go from there