I have a few ideas here, and the common theme between all of them is that you have to put yourself out there: * Find some developers in your local area who mai

I have a few ideas here, and the common theme between all of them is that you have to put yourself out there: * Find some developers in your local area who maintain, or can merge into, an open source project. Work on what they are passionate about, and get to know them. Learn what it takes to contribute effectively, and you'll get noticed. Bonus points if that open source project is something someone uses for work, as you're now another local expert in a tool that someone actively pays people to develop. * Find something in your local area that doesn't work as well as it should and fix it, or at least offer to fix it. There's a crosswalk signal on my block that is malfunctioning. It's supposed to flash a red hand (aka don't walk) with a countdown from 10 to 1 seconds before turning solid red. Instead, it flashes "99". If you saw that malfunction, you could do a bit of research to see who the manufacturer is, call up city hall, and tell them you'd like to work with the technician who is tasked with fixing the light. Ask the technician if his company has any work you could help with. * Find out who developed the websites for some local business in your area, or visit that local computer shop that offers website development along with their services. Ask if they'd hire you as an intern, showing them the work you've already done. Even if they don't ask them if they'd be open to discussing their process for hosting and deploying websites. Find a way to improve it, open source the solution, and give it to them. Now you've got a customer for your open source work, which is something you can most definitely put on your resume. At the end of the day, you'll have to decide if you're willing to figure out what it takes to create opportunity for yourself, or if you're willing to settle for opportunities advertised to you. Good luck, and stay awesome. And props to you for asking this question in the first place.