If you have friends who are able to hire you, work with them to proove you are capable to perform the job and are a good fit. Offer to implement a feature for

If you have friends who are able to hire you, work with them to proove you are capable to perform the job and are a good fit. Offer to implement a feature for free or meaningfully contribute to one of their open source projects to demonstrate you have the technical chops to be a productive member of their team. Also, besides technical skills, you have to be a good cultural fit. Make sure you do your homework what they are looking for in candidates more generally.