Scared of having a career gap

I'm a 2021 graduate. I left my first job at a small startup in Bangalore in January because they refused to pay my salary and my hike for 3 months (promotion was done but just on paper, they were paying the old salary).

I'm not good at DSA at all even though I handled multiple projects related to security and development tools using Go and have a good understanding about the language. But I'm not good at DSA at all, I don't have a leetcode account or solved any DSA problems yet.

If I want to get a job I have to start DSA from scratch which will take a minimum of 4-6 months. Which makes me unemployed for 1 year.

I'm scared whether this is a red flag in the recruiters point of view. And create a situation where recruiters intentionally try to hire me for less salary.

What should I do? Should I leave my current domain and switch to other technical jobs that may not require DSA during interviews or spend time to learn enough DSA to clear interviews?

If there's any way to get some guidance from senior engineers or people who had similar issues like this in the past, please let me know.

5mo ago
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