I've tried applying at three places. I've done web development "professionally" before and frankly I've always been extremely unhappy with the job environment, maybe it's characteristic of web dev or maybe just bad experience.
I would like to go into something deeper but my experience and interest in Distributed Systems, C/C++/Assembly and security is entirely self-taught and done out of a hobby so I don't have anything "professional" to show for it beyond the ability to talk for hours, a few web browser and plugin exploits I've written and the only substantial project I've done in C++ is one of the early WEP crackers for Windows which I wrote 6 years ago (and is riddled with classic C++ novice mistakes).
Plus, if I applied for a job now I would not feel comfortable asking for money up front to pay my rent, even if a company could figure out they wanted to make a hire before the end of the month.
I would like to go into something deeper but my experience and interest in Distributed Systems, C/C++/Assembly and security is entirely self-taught and done out of a hobby so I don't have anything "professional" to show for it beyond the ability to talk for hours, a few web browser and plugin exploits I've written and the only substantial project I've done in C++ is one of the early WEP crackers for Windows which I wrote 6 years ago (and is riddled with classic C++ novice mistakes).
Plus, if I applied for a job now I would not feel comfortable asking for money up front to pay my rent, even if a company could figure out they wanted to make a hire before the end of the month.