Ask HN: Advice for a discouraged developer, 5 years in

I didn't study computer science nor programming, nor did I think I would ever end up working on it. I never really cared much for tech. While struggling to find my first job out of college, I landed a very very entry level job working on a Java-based enterprise software. By that I mean they were hiring cheap, young labor in the means of people with zero experience in programming. The problem is they didn't really teach us rookies anything. No mentors, no explanation of frameworks used on code that existed for about 15 years, most of the existing devs were fired/quit after acquisition, etc.

That was about 5 years ago. I've learned much since then. But I feel that a mixture of circumstance/bad luck and my own doing (or not doing) has put me in a situation where I'm not competitive enough. I've gone through interviews trying to find a better job yet I get destroyed in all of them. I realized I had to learn data structures/algorithms to improve on my interviews. And I did, but I still get destroyed. Sometimes it's the whiteboard sessions. Most of the time it's any design question.

After all these years, I still feel like an entry level developer. I know I'm not. I just don't know how to improve. Work is not helping, and in 3 years of applying to jobs, the only offers I've gotten are for jobs which are not a step up. I know because I've accepted those job offers.

All I'm asking for is some advice. I am very clearly not the most tech-passionate person. I'm not looking for my passion in my job. I just don't want to hate my job, and myself for not being able to get out of it. Rejection is hard, and after a long time of it, it takes a toll. I feel like I'm just uncreative enough that I can't come up with an idea for a side project, inexperienced enough that I don't even know how to do anything else than very mediocre and simple web application development, and discouraged enough that I don't feel like coding in my free time anymore.