Flooded the market with over 100 job applications. Talked with dozens of people - from Tech Leads on another continent to clueless HR interns. Build up a really good perspective of the IT industry in the area. Dismissed many dodgy, disrespectful, weird companies, afterwards discovered that one has very bad Google reviews - customers call them scammers (my gut feeling was to refuse working on their take home assignment with a copyright clause). Met many respectful, caring people building legit businesses. The endeavour took 8 months (with one transitional acceptable job) and resulted with one legit job offer, in a niche but interesting industry, paid what I believe is the market rate. Realized that the job postings online basically evolved into Tinder - showing off, claiming things, lying, liking-dismissing for the most trivial reason, but few actual "transactions" happening. I don't want to go through this again.