I am a software engineer who is self-taught, and after graduation I took local jobs for small web shops for dev work.
Here's a brief description of my timeline from beginning to present:
– 1.5 years contract-to-hire SWE (W2 never actually happened)
– 3 months full-time W2 work, followed by 6 months unemployed
– 10 years independent contract work (freelancing)
– 2.5 years of no work, and a lot of job searching
The last 5 years of independent contract work have been very sporadic. During this time I typically made under $10k every year. I don't really know how to “put myself out there” as a freelancer, and after 10 years of doing it, I just want to go back to W2 as a FT employee.
My tech job skills include, PHP, MySQL, vanilla JS and jQuery. I don't know testing, cloud, or CI/CD practices. Jobs involve building small scale websites- at first only WordPress and eCommerce sites but around year 5 become more much web app SaaS-focused.
I have spent a very long time without work because I don't really know how to fit myself into other places with such a skill set. I get interviews and then get rejected for not being good enough. But these are the skills I have the most experience in by far. I don't have any other job skills that come close. I don't have close friends and relatives who have a good pulse on the tech industry. I do have a Github portfolio- it's not very “hot” or “trendy” tech but just things I do them because I enjoy doing them.
What other good options do I have? It doesn't have to be highly relevant to work I've done in the past. Anyone have any ideas of what I can or should do?
A side note: I've been working remote since 2013 (may explain a lot about my how my career has went) and am pretty good with maintaining a schedule and discipline around WFH.
