Very helpful, are there open source internship programs for web devs?
a) Web devs are the bottom of the food chain. CSS and HTML are trivial to learn, and JavaScript is on everyone's list. It's a really good way to get into programming, so -everyone- does it, and thus you're in a job market competing with everyone. You want to see this as step 1, there's a road ahead.
B) it's easy to go to job boards, see lots of listings for a tech, and conclude that's the tech to learn. But you end up in a pool with a lot of fish. Sometimes niche skills are easier to sell. (Unfortunately also harder to learn.) Perhaps branch out - maybe get a RassberryPi, compile the kernel yourself (turning things on and off), write a program or 3 in C etc. These are all hard (well harder than web) to do, and will give you a broader range.
C) many years ago I went to college already knowing how to program. I learned a lot there that wasn't programming, but made my programming better. Understanding fundamentals improved my ability to choose the right solution, long before I start writing any code. Times have changed, and there are other ways to get those fundamentals now, but go online look at a course cariculum, see where your gaps are. Maybe it's database design 3rd normal form , maybe it's determining the Order of an algorithm. Maybe it's knowledge of NP Complete.
D) people who add value get hired. People who figure out how to add value are valuable. It's easy to add value without getting paid. Try and demonstrate that. Its less about Open Source, and more about showing that you can add value. Find a charity and manage their IT for a year. Take a big OSS project, and work with their team to solve a hard problem they have. Doing hard things is more impressive than easy things.
E) learn sql. I mean learn it properly. There are databases everywhere, and in pretty much every job. Web dev is nice. Web dev with proper sql chops is much much nicer. Learn good design. Understand trade-offs - like when to use free or paid, when you add indexes, when to remove them. When to use in-database logic (triggers and stored procs) when to put logic in the program. Play with SQL Server Express. Contrast with Postgres. Contrast with Firebird.
Of course don't give up on just getting a job. You'll want that. But showing a track record of creating value, not just random programming projects, goes a long way.
Don't be disheartened. I say all this to encourage you. There's a lifetime of learning ahead of you. Getting good at learning is a huge advantage.
So this isn't actually true. People who make a good impression, that "connect" with the interviewer in the first 30 seconds, get hired. I mean, for dev work you do have to perform to some baseline in any coding exercise, but the real bar to clear is that first 30 seconds. I'm not just being dramatic. This has been studied to death. Your resume might play a part in being impressive in that first 30 seconds. If the interviewer has even looked at it. So you want your resume to make that intro, but then it's up to you in the opening seconds.
As a first time getting a dev job, it's impossible for the employer to know if you will add value. Even as a senior hire, this isn't really knowable.
Just look around at your coworkers. The value add part is random.