Ask HN: Depressed, need to leave web development, what can I do?

I'm an average developer. Been doing it 15 years. All the vacancies in my field now seem to have 300+ applicants.

~60% of the jobs are with outsourcing companies like toptal, gigster and so on.

My labour is a commodity but even lower paying jobs expects you to be a superstar leetcoder, with the wherewithal to go through 6-8 interviews and IQ test.

I don't see progress in my career, i hate technology, i hate what this industry has become - it's not something I want to do anymore.

Nearing my 40s, so my profile is less appealing to employers, this field is very oriented to young people.

Anyone managed to move from front-end to another role, while leveraging your existing work history?

Appreciate any guidance, thanks.

wtf...why can't i flag these comments

maybe better for the mod to delete this thread @dang

> Do you think you might have let your own skill set stagnate?

yes, definitely.

although i worked a lot with node and react, building electron apps, cli tools, browsers extensions - but i just don't enjoy it anymore. and i don't have experience building large scale production apps with the latest trendy stacks.

> The fact you think 300+ people are applying to the same jobs means the market might be saturated with those skills.

Basically front-end jobs, senior front-end also. Most jobs I see on linkedin have applications in the mid triple figures, its not even worth applying.

The only time I interview is when a company contacts me directly. I usually give up after they send the coding challenge link. i just stare at the screen, no energy or enthusiasm to tackle the problem. i enjoy html, css and vanilla js - but its usually some typescript challenge or something like that - which i refused to learn, since i already know javascript. once static type checking became a requirement in front end is like the intersection for when i became a dinosaur.

Although I am working now as a contractor for FAANG.

Sounds wrong, but I wonder if joining a very small firm would be better? Pay wouldn’t be as good but the team you’re apart of could be what you’re looking for and could allow you to branch out or even a project management role. Also nothing wrong with just doing a typical job to clear your mind to figure out what you want.