As someone who works extensively in Java, I agree, side-effects are tough and should be avoided in OOP. A lot of teams are moving toward more of an immutable object pattern as a standard, but its tough to enforce and adds a lot to the verbosity of the language.
Rust is a language I am currently in the process of learning and it seems great! ๐
Personally, I would say if you have experience in the field (sounds like you do), then the best you can do is keep trying and try to fill in the gaps where you know you're lacking (and discovering what you lack though the interview process).
Ultimately, it seems tech is going through a bit of a slowdown in the hiring of new employees right now, so its not as easy right now than it was for the last few years. As such, competition is much higher than it was, and even if you're a strong candidate, you will likely need to apply to a lot of roles to get where you want to go.
Just don't give up. :)
In java 9 there is Objects.requireNonNullElse(obj, defaultValue)
I did not know this existed, this is amazing.
This this this!!! I know this is a post from the place that shall not be named, but it just showcases the issues with ChatGPT (this is from when GPT4 was just released)