I've been thinking about posting something similar, but your experiences match mine, so I'll wade in with my experiences too. I too am a developer with 7 years

I've been thinking about posting something similar, but your experiences match mine, so I'll wade in with my experiences too. I too am a developer with 7 years of experience, probably a bit more if I count freelancing during university. I studied at a not-so-great university in the UK where I studied Computer Science, and most of my experience is either in a non-tech startup or digital agencies. In terms of agency strength I currently lead projects for a big UK agency in a satellite office. I'd say I'm a decent developer. Not the greatest in the world, but typically one of the better developers in most places I've worked. I've also got some open-source work behind me, and some user group talks, although primarily to do with content management systems. Over the past decade I've applied to Google and Microsoft a couple of times, and every time I've been quickly rejected by email. Whether it's for a college internship, grad scheme, as a recent graduate, or after a few years of experience, I've received a rejection email after a week of applying. I've had recruiters from Amazon and Microsoft contact me on LinkedIn in the past, and after sending over my CV I've heard nothing back. My thoughts match yours, in that I think it's because I don't have the "right" experience. It's probably a mixture of me being a .NET developer (and the stigma that comes with working on Windows), and primarily working with Content Management Systems. It's been a negative at jobs I've applied to in the past, so I can only guess that it's the same for the larger companies. I have a CS degree, and a public repo full of C# implementations of various data structures and algorithms, so I doubt it's to do with a lack of knowledge. Outside of me being put on some kind of top four blacklist, I can only guess it's because neither company wants to hire a .NET dev. Apologies if my reply isn't that helpful, but I thought I'd wade in as someone with a CS degree who feels that they are in the same position as you.