Four rounds of interviews over two weeks with nothing but excellent post-interview feedback and got rejected out of nowhere with no actual feedback. This is the farthest I've gotten in 6 months of looking to get out of my current dead end only to be shot down just because reasons after being told everything went great. What a kick in the junk.

I took a two-year career break after being laid off in early 2024 to focus on my mental and physical health. I’ve worked hard to get my life back on track and feel ready to return to tech. But the job market has me wondering if I’ve hurt my career by stepping away for so long. As a woman in tech, the anxiety is getting to me. I know I don’t want to be a housewife—I want to get back to work and rebuild my career. Did I mess up my future, or can I still make a comeback?

Has anyone here gotten hired recently after a long employment gap? I’ve been out of work longer than expected and I’m starting to worry recruiters see the gap and immediately move on. I still feel confident in my skills but explaining unemployment over and over in interviews is getting exhausting.

Is talking through your code still the gold standard, or has that changed? I was told I was too communicative during my technical interview because I explained my thought process as I coded. The feedback said it distracted the interviewers from the code itself, despite every interview prep guide telling me to talk through my logic. You literally cannot win.

A friend of mine who is a corporate executive said that the higher up the corporate laddar you climb, the fewer boundaries you end up setting and the more reachable you have to be. For those of you looking for a role in tech leadership, have you set your expectations for something like this?