[SL61]

Not a senior but I was in your position just last year. (Yes, 9 years after making my HN account...)

Pick a specialty like a hobby or field of study and aim most of your projects toward it. Connect with people in that speciality on Twitter or by contributing to their GitHub repos. The ideal niche will have enough people to get you a good number of connections, but few enough people that you're not lost in the noise.

Spend more time building things than applying for jobs. Most people advocate blasting out a wide spread of low-effort applications, but I don't think it works as well for self-taught developers. You need a good portfolio of original, high-quality projects that you can explain in depth, and well-target applications and cover letters.

Any kind of paid work is better than personal projects. Think about people you know and people you knew in the recent past, and ask yourself who might want some kind of freelance work. You don't have to charge a lot - if they pay you, it goes into your "Freelance Experience" resume section and now you have professional experience.