I had an even more extreme situation: 15 years of self-employed bumming, startups, small-business and I did very little programming. How I got a full-time prog

I had an even more extreme situation: 15 years of self-employed bumming, startups, small-business and I did very little programming. How I got a full-time programming job: Find industry that I was interested in. Research company that I was interested in. Brush up on industry and company specific domain knowledge. Tailored my CV to be relevant to company. Get interview(direct personal e-mail to person responsible for hiring). Nail linked-list building and recursive tree traversal in the interview. Show industry specific knowledge in the interview. Get job. Note: industry specific knowledge was as important as programming knowledge.