tl;dr - network more, your best chances will come that way, but it will take time to build your network. I'm not a typical example -- my experience here is ove

tl;dr - network more, your best chances will come that way, but it will take time to build your network. I'm not a typical example -- my experience here is over 20 years ago, I had no formal training in CS/engineering, and I was looking for work in an area that no one had open positions for (what people called a webmaster position in '95, but this was '92). I worked as a temp for a year until I got lucky with contacts / networking and found a company that needed my skills. I did very well for myself once I was able to demonstrate my expertise -- and I believe that's as true today as it was 25 years ago.