First off, figure out how you define best. Is it: Most pay? Most interesting work? Best work-life-balance? Best ratio of pay to work stress? Remote work? Fun w

First off, figure out how you define best. Is it: Most pay? Most interesting work? Best work-life-balance? Best ratio of pay to work stress? Remote work? Fun workmates? As others have said, it often takes experience to really understand what your best job looks like. So start by building a list of qualities that define best. Once you define what best looks like, then you can start thinking about companies and what they look for. There are tons of resources on the web about interviewing for all sorts of different companies/positions. Yes, build a project. See what you can get done in 2 weeks. Force yourself to produce something. Iterate. Build something else. Keep doing it. If you can get users and feedback that's so much better. Have a github profile but don't put your best work there and use it to apply to companies unless you have had someone else do a code review beforehand. Unfortunately other engineers can be pedantic when anonymously reviewing your github and I've seen lots of premature disqualifications due to this. I've hired hundreds of engineers, mainly software, data, and devops folks. If you're going for an environment that appreciates hackers (in the pg sense of the word) then it's all about showing that you have a passion for building things and self-learning. Good luck! If you need help getting started hit me up @aiconference or @shon