[ThrustVectoring]

>Applied to two jobs here in NY, taking my time with cover letters, following up where appropriate, researching the companies, etc.

That's the wrong approach, IMO. The goal of job applications isn't to make the best impression possible, but rather to find companies that are interested in talking to junior engineers.

The right approach is something like make/find a spreadsheet with 500+ tech companies in NY and send out something like 20 applications per day. If you're efficient about things, you can totally send out an application in <3 minutes, so it'll take no more than an hour of grinding per day.

Save the research and application quality for when you've got a warm lead.

>the bootcamp on my resumé isn't a strong guarantor of quality

Drop it from the resume and just put in your freelance work and independent projects, IMO.