I'm not at all arrogant in real life.
My last boss even told me that I don't stand up for myself enough. Besides, I didn't even say it was about me and merely brought it up to make a point.
Imagine constantly improving yourself for 15 years, then after 15 years, everyone you work with only gives you positive feedback and everyone wants to be on your team. You even launch open source projects which get thousands of stars on GitHub... You know you're good because there is no other explanation and nobody helped you and you have 0 meaningful industry connections and come from a modest background... but somehow you struggle to even land a first technical interview at a big tech corporation in spite of having the required university degree. That's my situation, so forgive me if I sound like an asshole on this anonymous website where I can finally vent my frustration.
One person tells me my problem is that I might be an asshole and you tell me my problem might be that I'm too nice... Why is it so far fetched to suggest that maybe the problem is not me? What if the problem is that most people in power have impostor syndrome and they feel jealous and/or guilty when they see a competent person who didn't achieve as much as they did. It makes them doubt their own success narrative. People don't want to be reminded how lucky they are; as an employee, I would be a walking reminder of that. That's the best explanation I can come up with to explain my experience in recent years why I struggle to find opportunities. I had many more opportunities 5 years ago back when I was far less skilled.
CTO types wants to be mentors to starry-eyed juniors, they don't want to improve themselves anymore, they think they're already as good as they can be, they don't want to be schooled by some low rank person.
> One person tells me my problem is that I might be an asshole and you tell me my problem might be that I'm too nice...
No, what the GP actually said was
>> I wonder if you suffer from Nice Guy Syndrome.
That's not the same thing. Because sufferers from Nice Guy Syndrome only actually think they're being "nice", but they're being so in ways or from motives that actually make them, in practice, assholes. (Sorry if that's a distortion or oversimplification of the book GP suggested; I recently skimmed through it, but didn't actually get to read the whole thing.)
> Why is it so far fetched to suggest that maybe the problem is not me?
Because usually, when one person has trouble with everyone else, and goes "What's wrong with all of them?!?", Ockham's Razor suggests the simpler hypothesis, "Maybe there's something wrong with you?", lies nearer to hand.
All in all, I'd suggest you try to get that book and read it more thoroughly than I did. (And so should I.)
Imagine constantly improving yourself for 15 years, then after 15 years, everyone you work with only gives you positive feedback and everyone wants to be on your team. You even launch open source projects which get thousands of stars on GitHub... You know you're good because there is no other explanation and nobody helped you and you have 0 meaningful industry connections and come from a modest background... but somehow you struggle to even land a first technical interview at a big tech corporation in spite of having the required university degree. That's my situation, so forgive me if I sound like an asshole on this anonymous website where I can finally vent my frustration.