u/AdAggressive3801

Hi everyone,

I (23M) recently resigned from my job and am actively looking for my next role. It's been a tough few weeks but staying positive and pushing forward.

Tech Stack: Java, Spring Boot, Micronaut, Python, MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, REST APIs

Experience: 2 years of backend development experience APIs, Data Pipelines, Production Support

Location: Currently in Bangalore but open to relocating anywhere in India. Also open to Remote/Hybrid.

Looking for SE-1 or SE-2 backend roles. Would be incredibly grateful for referrals, resume feedback, or honest suggestions on improving my chances.

Thanks for reading

Had my IBM backend dev assessment today and honestly feeling a bit shaken. It was a 1-hour test with 2 questions, so roughly 30 mins per question.

Q1- was a sliding window problem find the maximum sum of a contiguous subarray of length k where all elements are distinct. Fair enough, standard DSA stuff you can prep for on LeetCode.

Q2- is where it got wild. We had to make live paginated HTTP GET requests to an API, filter runners by sex and marathon name, manually parse JSON without any library, and implement tiebreaker logic all in Java. Here's the actual question:

Identify the fastest runner (highest top_speed) of a given sex in a marathon via HTTP GET requests at a paginated API. If two runners have the same top speed, return the one with fewer stops. Return empty string if no match found. I have 2 years of backend dev experience and I genuinely struggled with question 2. Not because I don't know APIs I work with them daily but doing raw HTTP calls, manual JSON parsing and pagination handling in Java under 30 minute pressure is a lot. Am I overthinking this or has the bar really gone up? Would love to know if others have faced similar tests.