I'm curious what your resume looks like and how you articulate the value you provide. I've used the same approach but recently haven't been as successful as I have in the past.
Checkout Dr. K’s thoughts on this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=3y5p7V05xls - one key takeaway is to strive to understand the knowledgeable sustainably. Avoid starting out with the intention of being the best.
Do you have an email I could reach you at? I’d like to share what I’m thinking the solution looks like and hear more about the challenges you’ve faced.
I totally agree that the tools which exist today cater towards the buyer. That is, the people with purchasing power who typically aren’t on-call. I’m building with a focus on the on-call experience for the people who are actually on call.
I’m actually building exactly this. It’s a simple on-call and incident management platform that covers many of your frustrations since I’ve had the same ones. I’d love to talk to you about it and get your feedback on my progress so far if you’re interested.
The interviews are not nearly as brutal as private industry. You'll have two technical ones, the first is a coding question on collabedit (easy string-related question). The second is more abstract and focuses on your ability to explain complex topics in easy-to-digest ways as well as evaluating trade-offs between proposed solutions / patterns / practices.
Then you'll have a behavioral one in which you'll be probed on your previous projects and experiences. These are best answered in the STAR format.
Also be sure you can pass the SF-86 without any major red flags. Checkout /r/securityclearance for more details.