Well if my experience is of any use... Keep at it! I didn't graduate from a top tier college or have been creating game engines since 9 years old, so I had to start at the ground floor like most people. It was extremely difficult at the beginning. From what I noticed, cold emailing rarely works. I had the most feedback/interviews/responses from either recruiters, networking and actually moving to tech hubs like Silicon Valley.
From the code perspective, a lot of companies noticed my open source contributions. Granted they were mostly minor utility code, there's always that little spark of joy from their voices whenever we go over that topic.
So go join an open source project! I know it's reiterated over and over again, but a good project can act as proxy real-world experience in helping you discover what it takes to write production quality code.
I guess if there was a single tip I could give, just be highly visible in committed code, web presence (as a programmer, not as a party animal) in websites and social networks, and face-to-face networking. That would raise your chances of being noticed.
From the code perspective, a lot of companies noticed my open source contributions. Granted they were mostly minor utility code, there's always that little spark of joy from their voices whenever we go over that topic.
So go join an open source project! I know it's reiterated over and over again, but a good project can act as proxy real-world experience in helping you discover what it takes to write production quality code.
I guess if there was a single tip I could give, just be highly visible in committed code, web presence (as a programmer, not as a party animal) in websites and social networks, and face-to-face networking. That would raise your chances of being noticed.