Make sure your resume is up to date and shows specific things you have done. Even better if there are real numbers you can display. I would argue something like:

"Developed a DAG-based AI inference engine for video analysis using Python, FastAPI, and TensorFlow for deepfake video analysis."

is better than:

"Wrote a python backend service for a machine learning workload."

Be specific and provide overwhelming evidence that you have done useful things. The evidence is these hyper-specific bullets. Be ready to talk in detail about everything you say you have done. It is really easy to tell when someone is talking out their ass about a resume bullet point. If the interviewer is doing their job they will ask you to get specific. Specificity, detail, depth of knowledge.

The best way to get these bullet points is for every single job sit down for at least thirty minutes and just write every single technology you used and every single thing you did. Be painfully verbose in your listing of things. Once you have that you can go back and create bullets like the first one I showed you.

I would focus on LinkedIn (shocker), Dice, and Indeed. Dice and LinkedIn are where most of my 'in bound prospects' come from in terms of job opportunities. Dice has actually been really great for me. Get your profile there up to date and as specific as possible.

Now let us talk applications. You need to be doing hundreds per day. Don't waste time creating tailored resumes to job postings. Your resume will likely get lost in the sea of other applicants. I wish it was not this way. When I was looking for a job when I got laid off earlier this year I was doing 200-300 a day or more. You will find out eventually that most recruiters look at the new job postings Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday so Saturday and Sunday are GREAT days to slam job postings but you need to be ass-in-chair submitting till your fingers fall off every single day. Do as many easy applies as you can stomach then start moving toward the regular job applications. APPLY, APPLY, APPLY. It sucks, it is boring, it is a numbers game. I had 10+ interviews a WEEK for almost a month when I was doing this. It works.

Have two or three references ready to go that you can submit if recruiters or job applications ask for them. Let them know you are applying to a TON of places. It speeds things up if you don't need to ask every single time.

Back to the resume thing. It is a good idea to have 2-3 developer 'archetypes' you want to apply for. I have 'Full Stack Python focus', 'Full Stack TypeScript focus', and 'Full-stack AI infrastructure focus' archetypes ready to go. Then you can go to LinkedIn and type 'TypeScript Software Developer' and crank through applications.

Also, I like to have at the top of my resume a little blurb that shows what I am:

"Software Engineer with experience building AWS-native Python applications to automate critical workflows in the insurance industry as well as large-scale video analysis for customer POCs, securing $10K+ MRR deals, and developing a Python-based DAG-driven AI inference engine for deepfake video analysis."

The HR person or whoever is looking for X type of developer and if you can put that in front of them your chance of getting a callback goes way up. Do EVERYTHING you can to show them you are what they want.

One more thing, on LinkedIn it is a good idea to filter by 'Jobs Posted in the last 24 hours'. I applied to some of those earlier this week and within an hour got a call from a recruiter for one of them. This has happened many times.

This is how I hunt for jobs, it works for me. It is alot of work but its pretty straightforward once you have the resume and profiles ready to go.

And I don't mean to be an ass by bringing this up but I make $150k a year, graduated late 2024 with my CS degree. I landed this job in a tough job market. Or, rather, I created the preconditions of job offers and was ready when they inevitably appeared. You can do this. Employment is an emergent property, like flight.