I'm in a similar boat at the moment. I've just been applying to developer positions that don't require senior and prefacing my cover letters with the fact that I am in fact very new to professional coding.

As for projects I had a few toy ones that I started to learn specific things, but after I felt I understood the objective the motivation kind of died. I'm now working on an app that my girlfriend wanted for her academic work.

Having someone who actually wants the app and can give input makes it a lot easier to keep going towards an actual finished product than when you're building it because you're supposed to build stuff. Bug your non-technical friends for what they would like to exist/be better.

>I've just been applying to developer positions that don't require senior and prefacing my cover letters with the fact that I am in fact very new to professional coding.

Maybe I should write a cover letter like that. I've worked in an unrelated tech field for almost a decade and I have never gotten a response for a jr position in the year or so I've been applying for them. I have, however, in spite of the fact that my resume indicates I'm new to programming, gotten a bunch of calls/emails for Sr. positions that am not nearly qualified for.

Don't bother pointing out that you're new (that'll be clear from your resume). Say what you've done and tie previous work to that as well.

Side projects that actually get shipped and are potentially HN-able (I refuse to believe you've never had a cool web app idea). Open source libraries for useful functionality for JS/Ruby/Rails. MOOCs (esp. with algorithms). Reimplementing/redesigning already existing open-source libraries (e.g. creating your own JS promises library, node.js router, Sinatra-style framework, JS templating language, etc. etc. etc.).

I would specifically caution against selling yourself short in job applications. Do not call yourself a "junior" software engineer. Call yourself a software engineer. Do not advertise in a cover letter that you are very new to coding. Just focus on what you've done.

Fair point. My thought process went that perhaps they do have junior positions but I saw an advertisement for something more senior, that said I do not have more than a few weeks experience in applying for webdev positions and evidence is better than reasoning from ignorance.

Thank you so much for the "junior" advice! I have a bad habit of underselling myself. I need to get more in the "this is what I work on and this is what I can build for you" mindset.

Do something exciting for you. More than anything, employers want to see you get excited and energized about something. So if there's some really cool problem that you want to work on and you create/help maintain an open source project related to it - that's great. Or make your own app. Whatever: it doesn't really matter, it just matters that you're into it.

Definitely good advice. I had a lot of fun yesterday adding some whizz-bang JS features to my personal site, so certainly feel the truth of this.

Any advice for getting started in open source? I always hear there are roles for newbies in even larger projects, but I'm not sure how to attack it all.