This might not be the popular advice, but it's coming from a self-taught developer that now has > 10 years professional experience.
1. You learn how to be efficient (if not necessarily clean) with your code
2. You will network by default in order to solve the problems you encounter - and set yourself up with the network you need to find a job
3. You prove that you have the range of skills needed for a good developer (requirements management, holistic understanding, deployment environment, technical depth)
Beyond that though I would suggest attending meetups in your area for all kinds of different things - for example there is a Ruby meetup in our area, there are node meetups, meetups for ML and NLP etc... These are cool places to show off your work, get help on projects and meet other people who would have links into jobs.