I Got Laid Off in February and It Exposed How Broken Tech Hiring Really Is

Long story short, I got laid off in February from a small startup due to budget cuts. As a senior developer with 20 years of experience, I had never really needed to look for a job before opportunities were always there, and recruiters used to reach out regularly. But this time was different. Things have changed. And the wake-up call was brutal. The system is broken. Applying to jobs You check LinkedIn daily and start noticing a pattern. The same companies keep reposting the same job over and over again. You apply and nothing happens. The listing already has more than 100 applicants, yet somehow it shows up again the next day. You receive an automated email, maybe two if you are lucky. After that, silence. And then it hits you. They are not really hiring. They are collecting resumes. Pipelines. Data. Signals. At some point, you start wondering if your application is just feeding a system, maybe even training models behind the scenes. And here is the real shock. You are no longer evalua