I arguably have a pretty good job currently in the public sector which has a fair amount of autonomy and prestige that have been earned within my current organization over ~13 years.

Last spring after COVID hit I was reached out to by a Facebook recruiter with the conversation morphing after a few months (and two other individuals on their end) until having a really exciting conversation with a recruiter in early August that was just refreshing since it actually seemed like Facebook's hiring process wasn't that bad and that they might actually value me and my existing experience.

Part of my challenge is that my current role is not completely coding focused so I really don't have that "true" software engineering background and find it hard to figure out where I'd fit in a typical tech company's role structure. Instead, I have experience coding my own projects for my organization and taking them from concept to production in weeks and maintenance over timespans of years, along with management and tech leadership experience within my own organization.

Since coding isn't a daily focus all the time, my programming skills tend to need to be dusted off each time I take on a new project, and I know I'm not the best algorithmic expert, etc. but I'm reasonably intelligent (in my own humble opinion) and able to learn from others when I have that opportunity available (learning about extreme scaling techniques and certain advanced topics that might only be encountered within a tech-focused organization is unfortunately something I can't easily do within my current organization, and team-wise I'm the primary person interested in these sorts of topics so don't have others to really discuss the ideas with, which leads to that interest in potentially moving to a tech-focused company). I feel like my existing experience and ability to work with others and learn quickly would have some value (especially when you consider that new graduates don't necessarily have a lot of these experiences under their belt, but they are still considered for hiring...their algorithm knowledge might just be a bit fresher/recent).

Switching back to the interview...I spent a bit of time studying for the initial coding interview and felt like I had done decently well, but still received the "thanks but no thanks" email a few weeks later.

After that rejection (along with others over the last several years from companies I saw on the monthly "Who's Hiring" threads that intrigued me) I'm kind of done with trying to apply for tech jobs at the moment.

I'd love to earn more and work remotely from my current location (now that the pandemic has made this a little more possible) and be able to contribute my working days to contributing to the success of a tech-focused company, but it's not easy to be accepted by a tech company when you don't have the right background or exact skills upfront, so at least for the time being I need to be happy with my current work situation (even if it isn't always the most glamorous, tech-wise, and doesn't pay the same as a large tech company might).

This is just one personal anecdote of course, but I do wish there was a different hiring process for folks wanting to break into a tech company with existing experience that would be valuable, albeit non-traditional to typical hires.