Mid career crisis is real.
I am 28 years old software developer with java as tech stacķ, over all 3.8 years of experience. First job was just a copy paste of api didn't learned much as it was truly next level. All I did was chat gpt and then switch to land here in tcs.
In this company its just core java nothing fascinating and it makes me less competent as market demands springboot and microservices, Here i am working on legacy stuff. It kills me from inside not able to make enough money, I am underpaid and cannot even switch because of tech stack gap.
I tried DSA, but left it in midway. Thought paying for some course like scaler. But I knew from within i will not be able to make it. I feel so emotionally drained. Can't save a single penny. I dont have any liability, but I cannot stay like this forever. I know my true potential, if given a chance can truly work hard enough. But these initial interviews and scrutiny is something that stops me. As per my age i underpaid and can't really escape the trap.
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Try making peace with whosoever you are, there is a reason you are like this 28 years in life and will not change drastically overnight. Everybody is not born with diligent disciplinary braincells, let it be what it is, dont be harsh on yourself.
Professional journey is a marathon of 4 decades, you haven’t completed even 4 years.
I would suggest you to go wild enjoying life for next ine year, travel wild, party hard, do something stupid guilt free. This will flush out self hate from your mindset.
Another thing is to moonlight, try hand at second side job, you are a developer and everything can be learnt from net, u just need a use case real life implementation that you can put on resume. Dont restrict yourself to Java, as a developer its a sin to be fanatical like religious person to his one religion.
Third thing is try tinkering in your current codebase, i remember myself injecting angular code in my project which was a web app just for heck of it. If possible try recognizing a small end to end process in your project and implement it seriously using your desired tech stack like from ui to middle layer to database saving, basically CRUD. Try reaching out to senior/mangaer to understand more about business process and gradullay increase the complexity of your side implememntation. Do this in SECRECY, managers/ colleagues are notorious behaving unexpectedly seeing someone do extra. This will not inly help you in having muscle memeory of how things are done technically but will also help you in interview as you can answer question how did you use Springboot/microservice in your project, experienced interviewer can catch candidates easily who bluff knowing techstack using those old examples learned from youtube/tutorials.
Hope you get something out of this, best of luck bro 😎