I sincerely wish you would elaborate on that.

How do you pick up projects? Where would you find entry-level projects? Do you mean open source project (in which case there have been several posts on HN and reddit about getting started).

Maybe open source work is really the scenic route to where he wants to get - after all he's looking for paid work.

And he seems to making an effort to meet people in person (having joined two user groups). What else / where else can one hook up with other software people (if you say forget the internet)?