How hard is it to find a job in your city?

I can't speak to the OP's specific circumstance but when I've been in this position in the (thankfully distant) past, what was more frustrating than anything was the bureaucracy and red tape between getting in the door for an interview and finally sitting down in a paid position. When you're already unemployed and needing that pay cheque, this lead time is terrifying. You need the job now, you need to get paid yesterday, you had 5 interviews last week and every one of them appears to be dragging their heels putting a signed employment contract in front of you and your rent or mortgage payment is due tomorrow.

As for "not wanting to prove yourself", you get to a point in your professional life where it's easy to feel like you've proven yourself a thousand times over with previous employment, solid references, a glowing resume, interviews with headhunters etc. and it can be frustrating when you walk in the door anew and despite 25 years of proving yourself, you once again have to redo that work. In an industry where we spend our entire lives automating away repetitive tasks, this is the one repetitive task that we just don't appear to be able to automate away... but if you don't want to go in the front door with all the other candidates, the only other way is to make a name for yourself that spans the industry:

- Attend user groups

- Attend conferences

- Network with key people at those conferences

- Become a speaker at conferences

- Put up courses on Coursera, PluralSight and other big name training sites

This way your name is out there, you're essentially being pre-vetted by the personnel that matter within these companies and you're already well known before you walk in the door. In essence, you're proactively interviewing.

When you speak at a conference, you're effectively interviewing at every company who has staff in the room. When you run a course, you're doing the same.

What other field expects you to "prove yourself" in an interview? Maybe performing arts. But a cattle call is a temporally self-contained affair. One or maybe a few days. Singers get accompanists, instrumentalists get to use their instruments. The selection to be performed at an audition is representative of the role. You don't hire a jazz pianist by asking him to sight-read Bach and demonstrate the fingering on an imaginary violin.

(Could an all-around virtuoso, or someone who had practiced that particular useless but impressive skill, do it reasonably well? Sure. But that's not the point).

Programming is this way. But it doesn't have to be. There's education, professional licensing, portfolio, accomplishments, references, reputation, with an hour or two of interviews at the end to discuss these things in more detail and assess culture fit. Maybe a demonstration of relevant skills under realistic conditions. Not blind faith, but some trust that respectable peer institutions don't graduate or promote/retain horrifically incompetent people very often. The way professionals get hired past entry level in any other line of work.

(At entry level, internships are readily available to those without much of a track record yet, and you prove yourself from there).

Melbourne, Australia here. Personally as an ops engineer I'd find it _very_ easy to get another job, my guess is that if I didn't care what the job was I could get one in a day, if I wanted to wait for something decent but not fantastic I'd probably need to spend a week and a half perhaps? And for something really great - well that could be anywhere from a week to six weeks, maybe more depending on how picky I was being I'd guess?

When I hear of people that can't get and job and are in IT, they're either:

1) Inexperienced and don't have the the charisma and confidence to prove they can learn things quickly. I feel sorry for these people and I hope they can learn the skills to help themselves.

2) Think they know their stuff but they're book learned, probably have some bits of paper that say they're certified in X or Y that no one cares about, I see so many people with rubbish qualifications like MCSE or CCNA etc... (note that CCNA does teach you important networking concepts but that's not its point), these people piss me off, and when they do get a job - they're the ones I don't want to have anything to do with.

Selling is probably the most important thing you do in any professional job. You sell your managers, your peers, your clients, your partners. Some people cynically call it "playing politics." Now if you don't want to do all that I suggest you treat programming as a more "artistic" pursuit where you can pursue your passions making whatever your mind can think up, and try making money doing something else you're better at selling. Who knows, maybe given the freedom to program outside of a corporation you'll wind up creating something amazing that has companies beating down your door.

I'm in the process of applying for Canadian Citizenship so I can't leave the country at the moment - but I am open to moving to BC if I have to.

all 3 startups were bootstrapped. One of them is in the process of finding investors, the other 2 are still in their early stages (with no new hires).

I'm pretty sure it's the opposite: for every four job postings, there is one person looking for work. So, the climate is very good.

That could have been my current employer.

We are currently making a web version of a old C++ app. Told bosses we need someone who primarily does web stuff. The job listing gets passed around and C/C++ gets added because it 'would be nice if they can also maintain the legacy app'. I swear they are trying to find a unicorn with how much they are willing to pay such a person when found (very entry level).