I don&#x27;t think BART goes to Silicon Valley - is there something to connect the two?<p>Yes, Lua is very much a niche.  I tried applying at Cloudflare because they use the Lua module for nginx - that is definitely in my field as I use them both already.  I&#x27;m haven&#x27;t heard back but they&#x27;ve had that position (Lua Engineer) posted for months now.  I think my resume might be sitting in a stack.<p>I had hoped my community college AS in Computer Science would account for something, but when you compare it to those who went to uni I&#x27;m sure it&#x27;s greatly devalued.  I like to learn on my own as needed, but I can&#x27;t show that on paper (can I?).  I do feel that I know algorithms fairly well - I spent last week learning the Paxos algorithm so I could apply it to database (mirroring?).  I have fun doing things like that, it&#x27;s just not something I can say I&#x27;m accredited for by a university.<p>I hadn&#x27;t been getting interviews for a few months but I managed to get 4 all last week (when it rains, it hails?).  I was nervous for the first interview but because it was for a friends&#x27; company I think I still gave a good impression with him vetting me.  I had an easier time admitting my limited frontend experience in the subsequent interviews with other companies.  I actually think the way I said this made me appear stronger, like I expected to have no trouble picking it up quickly.<p>Anyway, I&#x27;ve been trying to decide if I should throw myself into a project to show my ability through Github.  I&#x27;m torn thinking I should be devoting all my time to the job hunt, but many of my friends have done this to get noticed..<p>I appreciate your feedback, thank you sir &lt;3