[amorphid]

When I was a fresh programmer at age 39 in San Francisco, I found it very difficult to get a job, too. The trick that worked for me was posting my resume on Dice.com and saying "willing to relocate". A recruiter in Washington, DC noticed me. I interviewed remotely, got the job, moved to DC, got some experience, and later moved back to SF. Don't be afraid to do what you gotta do.

If you do consider the relocation route, I recommend trying to pick a city with a fair number of tech jobs and shortage of local candidates. In SF, I was competing against many, many entry level developers. In DC, there weren't that many.