2.5 years experience, feeling lost and confused about my career. Need advice from experienced developers. Pardon me if i have said too much, i'm eager for advices so expressed it all. Thank you.
Hello fellow devs,
I'm from Kolkata,India and currently working as a Software Developer at Jio Platforms in Mumbai,India. This is my first job, and I have around 2.8 years of experience.
My primary skill is Angular, and honestly, frontend development is what I enjoy the most. Over the last couple of years, I've worked on enterprise applications, dashboards, workflow automation portals, authentication systems, and various internal tools. Along the way, I also started learning Node.js and Spring Boot because I felt I shouldn't limit myself to frontend only. I'm not an expert in backend development yet, but I can build APIs and work on real projects. I believe that, just like Angular, I can become good at it through experience and consistent work.
The reason I'm writing this post is because I've been trying to switch jobs for the last 6–7 months. I've been applying through LinkedIn and Naukri almost daily. I have given a few interviews, but nothing has worked out so far. Earlier I used to receive calls regularly, but for the last 3–4 months it feels like the market has completely gone silent for me. Applications go out, but responses rarely come back.
At the same time, AI has been affecting my motivation. I know AI is a tool and not a replacement for developers, but sometimes it feels like the frontend work I enjoy can now be done much faster by AI. That thought has been making me question whether I should continue in this field long-term or move towards something else.
Lately I've been feeling stuck. I've become genuinely unhappy over the last 7 months. The constant applying, waiting, rejection, uncertainty, and comparison with others has started affecting my mental state. I keep asking myself whether all this stress is worth it.
I've even thought about resigning around December, moving back to my hometown, spending time with family, and figuring things out from there. Maybe continuing in IT, maybe exploring something completely different. One thing I've always felt interested in is teaching students, but I don't know if that's something I truly want or if it's just me wanting an escape from my current situation.
The biggest problem is that I still don't know what I want.
So I wanted to ask the experienced people here:
- Has anyone gone through a similar phase?
- Is the market really this difficult right now for 2–3 YOE developers?
- Should I continue focusing on Angular and become really strong at it?
- Should I push harder into Java/Spring Boot and become a full-stack developer?
- Would leaving my job without another offer be a terrible decision?
- How do you know when you're genuinely ready for a career change versus when you're just burned out?
- Does this stress never go ?
- Is career break really bad? does i make it difficult to get job later ?
- Should i do certificates of my skills ?
I would really appreciate honest advice, even if it's tough to hear.
I genuienly appreciate anyone who has read till this. Thank you for hearing me out. I'm really in tough situation right now. I would love you all to say what you feel about this. Also some good success stories who have gone throught the same situtaiton and then listened to their heart and succeded, stories like these will surely cheer me up and maybe motivate me in some way to listen to mine too.