Besides all the already mentioned, solid responses about looking for new opportunities (personal network, consistent daily applications, etc), it's worth noting

Besides all the already mentioned, solid responses about looking for new opportunities (personal network, consistent daily applications, etc), it's worth noting this one too: Become a regular contributor to specific open-source projects (esp if it's a growing and/or funded startup). This approach might work better for those that are already comfortable w/ OSS and don't yet have connections. When applying to that company a bit later, obviously mention all the merged PRs. For example, here's Posthog [0] showing you what you could help with thru a job post. You can find more companies like this one at Fossfox [1], shameless plug: I maintain that index rn. [0] https://posthog.com/careers/full-stack-engineer-growth#typical-tasks https://posthog.com/careers/full-stack-engineer-growth#typic... [1] https://fossfox.com/ https://fossfox.com/