So basically I’m a self taught programmer and I would classify my skills as intermediate… I mainly know JavaScript and Python, and a little bit of C++. but I’ve also practiced and gotten fairly good front end web development.

I’ve never been able to push past the intermediate level because I don’t work in the tech industry and I’ve been doing prerequisite classes in school which didn’t teach me anything I didn’t already know besides having more hands on C++ experience.

My grades are all excellent and I have some personal projects I’d be proud to show off but somehow non of it feel good enough to land a job in tech, most if not all listings require multiple years of professional experience or being a few month away from graduation if it’s an internship. By the time I graduate I will be close to being 30 and I really want to get started much sooner than that, otherwise I’ll be stuck in dead end retail jobs barely scraping by.

Do you have any advice that I can follow?