Better than nightschool would be to spend time developing your own product. Look around you, and any time you run into a problem (I wish I could do X easier or

Better than nightschool would be to spend time developing your own product. Look around you, and any time you run into a problem (I wish I could do X easier or cheaper) think if you could build a system that does that. There are plenty of hacker spaces: once you have a project in mind take your latop and go hang out, find a space you like and just get to work. You'll naturally start to interact with others, find out about free weekend classes, conferences etc. Once you start building your own project you'll learn fast (and go ahead - make a lot of mistakes! It's important). Having a working project that does something useful and interesting is a very, very good resume. Use Show HN to your benefit too. I also read above you are contributing to open source projects: stay subscribed and be proactive if a bug or feature comes up that you think you can tackle. Good luck!