I have 7+ years of experience as a software developer, and was laid off back in September (unrelated to performance).

After taking a couple of months off, I’ve been actively back on the market since the start of the new year, and it has been tough.

Landing interviews has not been that challenging, but the amount of interview rounds and take-homes/assessments every company expects you to go through these days has been grueling to say the least.

I am okay at solving leetcode problems or UI-building live coding, but my very first system design “on-site” interview yesterday completely wrecked my confidence. It was probably the worst interview performance of my life and an incredibly humbling experience.

I’ve been hired on in a “full stack” capacity in the past, but the majority of my responsibilities in my career have been 70-80% working with front end/javascript technologies.

Does anyone have any advice in regards to strengthening my system design knowledge, and broadening my knowledge about systems architecture as a whole?

If it matters, I do not have a conventional CS background (bachelor of arts degree, self taught developer).

I bought “System Design Interview” by Alex Xu, but have only been through the first few chapters. I have also gone through Neetcode video courses “System design for beginners” and “System design interview”, but it may be worth it to watch these again several more times to make sure I’ve retained it all.

Any additional resources, general advice (or encouragement 😭) is welcomed!