One thing to do is to keep applying consistently as if it were your job. Read a bit about the company, and if you'd like to work there, send them your résumé, and a nice email about how you may help and why you would be interested.

Don't bullshit. It's insulting. We received emails from candidates who'd tell us how they admire our work or that they were impressed by our projects: we didn't communicate on what we did because of an understanding with our clients for long periods of time, and having candidates send us emails claiming they were inspired by what we did demonstrated a lack of general intelligence.

Whenever someone asks how to freelance or land projects, I point to this mini-roadmap[0]. Essentially, it advocates to do it as a business instead of an individual, and try and work with companies. That could be useful for you if you decide to have a small company or consultancy as a vehicle for your output.

I replied to someone a couple of days ago asking about how to better stimulate their mind for business[1]. I give a few examples of projects I had worked after listening to people's problems, and then solving those problems. That could be useful for you if you want to leverage your life experience and your problem solving and programming skills.

There is an "index reply"[2] that contains links to many other replies that could help you be more employable, be more effective, improve faster, grok code effectively, build products, solve problems, etc. That could help you whether you choose to join a company or go on your own.

>Unfortunately, that company ended up going under right about the time corona-virus hit and I have yet to formally work as a proper software developer.

Did you develop software for your employer? You have formally worked as a proper software developer

>I've been looking through employment sites and things have been difficult for me because I'm coming from such a different work background (I have been professionally cooking for 4-5 years after graduating college).

Interesting. Can you draw a graph from food production and sourcing to waste in the toilet? During these five years, was it all perfect? What would be something you used to rant about? What would be inside jokes on an aspect in your sector that sucked? Things that if I told them to you, you'd know that I had been there and done that in the field? Things that kept people at night, got people fired, or sank down businesses?

Did you like the people in that sector and would gladly have conversations with them?

>I'd like to figure out how to get my foot in the door in order to get a proper start on becoming employed. I'm completely willing to work for free in order to gain experience and to learn what it takes to become employable.

Not to tell you what to do, but I'd be wary of someone who takes you up on your offer.

>If there is anyone here that can benefit from having helper for Python-related work, I would love to make myself useful for free. My goal is to learn and work towards becoming employed in this new field.

One step towards that direction would be to include contact information in your profile, and links to your projects so people could get in touch.

- [0]: https://twitter.com/jugurthahadjar/status/131066829330549965...

- [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25636535

- [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25367011