I have been trying for 8 months trying to land a job in software engineering but have never received an offer. I had interviews and made it through the final panel interview stage for a handful of companies, but I can't for the life of me get anyone to hire me.

I do not have a CS degree, but I have a degree from the University of Chicago, I have a JD and practiced corporate litigation at a top-tier firm for three years. Afterward, I left to explore my own business ideas, building my own software platform.

I don't think I shoot too high either. I apply to jobs that are mostly entry-level or that ask for zero or 1 year of experience. It's not like I am a novice in the world of software. I've been coding since I was in middle school, I took CS courses in college, and basically self-taught myself the rest.

I do not think it would be beneficial for me to take a bootcamp course. I know enough that doing so would not add much to what I already know, much less be a huge cost and time sink. I do good work, and I am a fast learner, resourceful, intelligent, and a strong critical and creative thinker.

It's really difficult to find motivation in the face of the fact that there are recent grads younger than me with zero experience who land high six-figure jobs on the regular.

Maybe it's the way I look, what I say, or my age. I don't know what it is. A lot of them say we are looking for someone with more experience when the listings don't require it and people with zero experience get offers.

I feel like I've been in this situation at every stage of my life, where I have to literally work several times harder than everyone else for lesser, where no one seems to value me or take me seriously. It's so exhausting and humiliating. I do not have the connections other people have, and I never had.

Seeing the double standards just upsets me even more.

Is this normal? How long did it take you to land a job offer?

I'm just fucking tired of the whole charade.