Every 1st of the month, there are a few hiring posts here on HN - https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring

The next one is tomorrow (1 Feb). Make sure you post to them, saying you're looking for work.

And yes, you can get freelance work as a self-taught programmer. Most people I know do exactly that.

If you do Ruby/Rails in addition to Javascript, I might have some work for you. Email's in my profile.