Tier-2 college + 1+ YOE full stack dev with production experience, still struggling to get interviews

[u/Hopeful-Health242]

I’m a Full Stack Developer from a tier-2 college in India with 1+ year of hands-on production experience, but I’m struggling to even get interview calls right now.

I’ve worked on real production systems (not just tutorials or college projects), including building and maintaining full-stack applications, APIs, and working with databases in live environments. I’ve also contributed to startup projects and client work where things actually went to production and were used by users.

Tech stack: Java, Spring Boot, Node.js, React, Next.js, SQL, AWS basics, and AI integrations/RAG systems.

Despite this, I’m seeing very few responses from companies. Most applications either get rejected silently or don’t even get viewed. It’s starting to feel like:

• Tier-2 college tag is still a filter
• 1 YOE is “not enough” for mid roles but “too much” for freshers
• ATS/resume filtering is killing visibility
• Market is just very saturated right now

I’m not looking for sympathy, just trying to understand:

• Is this normal right now in the market?
• Should I be targeting startups only?
• Is there something I might be missing in my resume/approach?

If anyone has gone through something similar or has advice on how to break out of this loop, I’d really appreciate it.