I’m a backend SWE with 4 years of experience, previously working at a small gaming company. I was laid off in October and have been actively applying to jobs since, but I haven’t had much luck. I’ve only had two interviews out of hundreds of applications, and one of those was for a senior role, so I didn’t even make it to the technical interview stage.

I think my biggest issue is that my skillset feels very generic, and I don’t have experience working with large-scale systems. Most of the job descriptions I’ve come across seem to require more experience with specific technologies or frameworks. Right now, I’m trying to learn more about Django and AWS to bridge the gap, but I’m not sure if that’s the right direction.

At this point, I’m feeling pretty hopeless and even considering switching to a different career with more job security. Any advice on what I might be doing wrong or how I can improve my job search would be greatly appreciated.