There's clearly something stymieing you here, and you're the common denominator. We're not psychic, if you aren't upfront with your lack of social skills, your

There's clearly something stymieing you here, and you're the common denominator. We're not psychic, if you aren't upfront with your lack of social skills, your potential to be dunning-krugering yourself, or your unwillingness to write code on your own time for the sake of it, we can't do much for you. I had a rough start to my career (I have no degree and spent the latter half of my senior year of HS trying to avoid getting slapped with a felony charge), but I still managed to make it because when it came down to it, I enjoy programming. I enjoy programming so much that regardless of what happens in my career, I will code. I will code hungry, tired, or homeless. I will code at night, in the morning, and in the afternoon. Getting paid to code is a plus, but not the point. This attitude showed, and I was eventually given a shot. Where's your code? Why do you want to be in this industry? Good luck sorting yourself out. The early years are usually rough. I'm going to go get some night riding in. 2nd edit before I go: You shouldn't give a fuck if anybody, including an interviewer, sees your code. One of the quirkiest but most interesting programmers I've ever known is a 50-something year old that has worked as a line cook his whole life (other than a brief stint in the military). No formal education. Rough around the edges, maybe 5 people in the whole world have seen his code, and he's probably better at programming than you are... ...because he codes. His latest project? A pseudo-stack machine JIT runtime thingamajobber. The man amazes and amuses me regularly.