I'm hitting 2 years of unemployment in a month. Its somewhat intentional, the day after I became unemployed (I quit) I started to learn Elixir and began work on building a MMO-type game (this was unplanned). Why? Because I like distributed systems programming. I didn't expect to still be working on it 2 years later. Honestly there was no plan or expectation. I got sucked into this project and it was better than having to look for a job. Its fulfilling and intellectually stimulating. The game has public playtests and I have some interested players.

But now I'm hitting 2 years and the money is starting to dry up so I need to find work again. I always thought working on this type of project would be a win-win for finding work again, but it hasn't helped much. It may even be a hinderance. Employers/Recruiters don't take it seriously or see it as some exotic work experience. I try to tell them - Distributed Systems...the concepts are the same wherever you go. No dice. I'm on the younger side and have 3 years of professional experience at a payments startup doing backend + devops + AWS. Sometimes I wonder if I screwed myself out of the job market. I'm seen as a Junior Dev with a 2 year work experience gap.

I cope by staying in shape. I have a good routine and I even got into swimming over the past year! I think if it wasn't for these activities I would've fell into despair some time ago.

A tip about independent projects on a resume. Put yourself as an employee, a hired contractor, or just a technical co-founder. Don't mention that you're the solo or main founder, unless it's a far past project. I've learned the hard way that regardless of what they may say about looking for autonomous, free thinking, resourceful, self-starters, basically all the qualities of an entrepreneur, employers balk at the label. Some will reject a good profile if they don't feel that you'll be around for more than 2 years, even though many of their recent hires are gone shortly after a single year.

List what the technical challenges of the projects were, what its promoters expected, and how you addressed everything. Don't let entrepreneurial merits overshadow technical ones, especially if you're not after a position like product manager in a company that truly understands how to employ entrepreneurs.

Another way to think about it is that the perception that someone else took a risk on you seems more valuable to employers than you being crazy enough, audacious enough, or courageous enough to dare take on life.

Link to your game? Would love to check it out

Nvm found it will try later since I’m on mobile.

https://swarmmo.games/