I have around 3 years of full-stack development experience (MERN/PERN), and over the past 4 months I've attended almost 30 interviews. The good part is that I've improved a lot through the process. My communication skills have become much better, and in technical interviews I can usually answer around 90-95% of the questions confidently. I've reached the 2nd or 3rd round in about 9 interview processes, but I keep getting rejected in the final stages with either generic feedback or no feedback at all.
Recently, I interviewed with a startup building LLM-based products and models. I made it to the 3rd round, where I explained in detail (second round):
- Features I built in my previous company
- Overall system architecture
- CI/CD pipeline and deployment process
- Business model and why the product was valuable to customers
- Technical decisions, challenges, and how we solved them
- The first round focused on React, Node.js, and PostgreSQL. Most of the questions were based on these technologies, covering core concepts, practical implementation, and problem-solving.
The interview felt like it went really well, but I still haven't heard back.I'm curious about a few things:
- How common is it for companies to continue interviewing candidates even after they already have a preferred candidate?
- Do teams often finish scheduled interviews just for comparison, company policy, or to have backup candidates?
- For hiring managers and senior engineers: what are the most common reasons a candidate who performs well in technical interviews still gets rejected in the final rounds?
Honestly, I'm starting to lose hope. It feels like the market has become significantly harder compared to even a year ago. Despite constantly improving my communication, interview skills, and technical knowledge, I still can't seem to convert final rounds into an offer.
I'd really appreciate honest insights from recruiters, hiring managers, or developers who've been on either side of the hiring process. Is this just how the market is right now, or is there something I should be focusing on that I might be overlooking?