Hi. I'm a dev manager for Powershop, which is a New Zealand company based in Wellington, and a good chunk of my job is recruiting devs.
Wellington is suffering a bit of a drought of good, available developers at the moment. We've had so many tech companies start up here in recent years, and the working conditions in most companies are so good, that people are generally content where they are. Given that, we all advertise internationally. I'd say about half of our applicants that pass initial screening are international now.
Qualifications are mostly meaningless – don't worry about that, especially if you spent the time you would have been at college doing practical work.
It's a risk hiring someone from overseas, so we look for you to prove three things:
1) that you're experienced in your area
2) that you are highly skilled in the things you claim to be
3) that you are likely to stick around for at least a couple of years
Links to open source software you've written is great at demonstrating the first two. People you know here, prior experience with the country, a family enthusiastic to move will all go towards demonstrating number 3. Whatever the case, you need to be able to quell your interviewers' fears by having very solid answers to those questions.
Given our developer shortage, getting a work visa is a straightforward process once you have a job offer.
Hope that helps. I'm @mogest on twitter if you have any other questions.