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I'm not in a hurry to move, I would like to plan and prepare for the transition once I've sat with this feeling and understand that it's real and it doesn't just pass over me.

Perhaps I could use the next 6 months to study and create some weekend projects.

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Sounds great. To be clear, I don't think weekend projects are a huge help in getting a job in the sense of having a portfolio, more to give yourself the confidence and polish your skillset a bit.

IMHO if you can position yourself in a relatively niche domain, you may actually get more value than by creating weekend projects.

In your shoes, I would actually try to get hired now. Probably lots of companies, see e.g. Who is hiring / Who wants to be hired threads, would extend you an offer straight away.

Sounds valid too. From OPs post it sounded like he's not very confident in his coding ability any more, so I suggested the weekend projects. But no downside to just applying already and finding out if your confidence/ability is already enough :) If not, can always do more weekend projects until it is.

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