Ask HN: How do I go from Admin to Dev?

I went to school,studied CS and graduated. I really enjoyed school and since my graduation in the spring of 2009 I have had a Linux Admin job for the last two years. When I graduated jobs, even dev jobs were hard to find. I applied for a while but the common trend was that you needed 3-5 years of experience for entry level positions and my personal finance prohibited me from doing an internship.

I am not a great programmer but think I am pretty good. As a Linux admin I come into contact with developers of various degrees and would say without a doubt that my programming knowledge exceeds some of theirs at times. It's odd to say that but meeting a senior web developer who has no idea what GET or POST are does cause concern. Or one who when you mention rest looks at you with a blank stare even though their rails is architected on rest.

My problem is I have been a linux admin for the past two years and whenever I apply, no matter what I do I am instantly pushed aside due to that. I asked this question some time ago on another site and was told to put up personal projects on github. I did and it looks great. The problem now is HR at many of these companies presumes that admins can't code so why would he have a github. It's an odd association because most of the admins I know also have CS degree's and can code. They may not understand/remember the specifics of OO or how to create a socket in C but they can program. If you asked them to do something they would look up what they don't know like anybody else and get it done.

I could say that I am a Python programmer but the truth is it doesn't really matter what language it is. Whether it be Java or SML, in a week or two I can write and test decent code. The first time I was asked to do a fizzbuzz I had no issues and did it quickly.