Project Management Career Rut- Penny for your thoughts

Hey- long time observer, first time writer. Putting this out there out of curiosity and hoping to gain insight.

I’m a Producer/ Project Manager on the creative/marketing end of things with some light product experience in the Bay Area. All in all, I’ve been in the field just shy of ten years. The design firm I was at had massive layoffs in January 2018 in which I was impacted and ever since I’ve been freelancing which is fine, but I’m ready to get rooted (ideally at a tech company).

I’m either under qualified (for something like a director position) or the market is looking for super green folks (less and a year). For the positions which do seem like a fit, I make it to the final round and then the position either goes dark, or they “go in another direction” -with no feedback. To my surprise, Twitter was really lovely and called me to say that they loved me, but my going out of town for a wedding in a few weeks didn’t meet their timing needs which is understandable.

I’m dreading the idea of going back to agency life which frankly seems archaic in the current market. I’d way rather be at a tech company and make an impact opposed to being part of the revolving door of an agency serving a company and getting a fraction of the benefits and impact ability. I love what I do, but I’m starting to feel a bit discouraged.

Anyone else out there find themselves in this rut? What did you do to turn it around?