QA/ETL professional in Canada - stuck between choosing paths, work permit running out. Need honest advice.

Backgorund: I have 2+ years of QA and ETL testing experience from Cognizant in India (SQL, Databricks, ADF, Selenium, Postman, Azure DevOps) and recently completed two postgraduate diplomas in Big Data Analytics and AI. For the past 2 months I've also been doing self-learning on Azure Data Engineering covering Synapse, Databricks, Delta Lake, ADF, and MS Fabric.

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It's been 6 months into my work permit and I still haven't landed a single interview. I've been trying to push myself toward a junior Data Engineer role by doing self-learning and certifications, leveraging my previous ETL and pipeline testing background as a foundation.

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But I keep going in circles between two paths:

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QA/Automation roles - feels like going backward after investing in Canadian education and I don't want to go back to testing. On top of that, the Canadian market expects at least 3-4 years experience with newer automation tools which I don't have. Recruiters occasionally reach out to me for QA roles but after I send my resume they go silent saying my experience level is too low.

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Data Engineer/Analyst roles - I have training exposure but no real hands-on solution-building experience, and even junior roles ask for 2-3 years.

I've been trying to position myself as a Data QE / ETL Tester as a middle ground, but I'm not seeing many dedicated postings for that in Canada.

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A few questions:

1.Is Data QE / ETL Testing a realistic target in the Canadian market or too niche?

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2.For someone leveraging QA/ETL testing experience to break into junior Data Engineering - is self-learning and certifications alone enough or is it a dead end without Canadian work experience?

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3.For people who transitioned from QA/testing into Data Engineering in Canada - what actually worked?

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Work permit has about 2.5 years left but I don't want to waste more time going in the wrong direction. Any honest advice appreciated. Thanks in advance!