Comment by nickyvanurk

One thing that seems to work for me: follow your curiosity. Admittedly, I am still a young programmer (shy of 30), but so far this has not yet failed me. During job interviews I usually show some game I made in my spare time, and even though the game hardly shares the same tech stack, my genuine enthusiasm while talking about it and showing it off makes them excited too and make them want to hire me. On top of that I also have some open-source contributions that I made because some project had a bug or missed a feature I needed. I never did it to increase my brand but it sure doesn't hurt. I also share the books I've read on my personal website which can be a nice conversation starter. I usually get to take my pick from several companies whenever I'm looking for a job.