I second both Udacity, and applying to every job where the description seems to fit you.
I was in a similar situation just a week and a half ago - almost 25, took 6 years for a 4 year degree(something you can't do in India, looks really really bad on the resume) and had no experience other than a failed stint as a freelance web developer and a useless 3.5 month stint at a company where I did nothing.
So, till last Sunday, I had pretty much 0 value in the job market. I had a Github account and some small projects on it, but nothing more than decent and I kept thinking I'll apply for this awesome position when I finish that amazing project. And I would've kept doing that for a long long time, but there was a thing came up where I had to travel to another city and I figured since I was going there, might as well apply to a few positions in companies based there. So early Sunday morning(2am ish) I send out a bunch of applications. By Wednesday I had a new job with payed more than what most of the guys I went to college with earn(in some cases it might be as much as 2x), had a standing job offer from another place for when I leave the job I hadn't even started yet, one co-founder pushing me to come over for an interview and offered to better what ever I'd make at the other place, plus 3 other inquiries.
And all that with a few half decent projects on github and a passionate(I think so) about me thing on the resume.
Granted that there are a lot more better programmers available in the US than there are here in India(my boss was shocked by the level of most coders he interviewed), but still it seems doable - getting a job solely on coding chops.
I'm not saying that if you start applying you'll get a job the next day or even the next week or the next month. I'll be the first one to admit that I got really lucky with the timing(a lot of start ups had put up wanted posts at that time) and with the apparent lack to good programmers who want to work at start ups in India. But unless you apply, you don't find out whether or not you could've got that position you liked.
So code some stuff up, put it online and start applying.
I was in a similar situation just a week and a half ago - almost 25, took 6 years for a 4 year degree(something you can't do in India, looks really really bad on the resume) and had no experience other than a failed stint as a freelance web developer and a useless 3.5 month stint at a company where I did nothing.
So, till last Sunday, I had pretty much 0 value in the job market. I had a Github account and some small projects on it, but nothing more than decent and I kept thinking I'll apply for this awesome position when I finish that amazing project. And I would've kept doing that for a long long time, but there was a thing came up where I had to travel to another city and I figured since I was going there, might as well apply to a few positions in companies based there. So early Sunday morning(2am ish) I send out a bunch of applications. By Wednesday I had a new job with payed more than what most of the guys I went to college with earn(in some cases it might be as much as 2x), had a standing job offer from another place for when I leave the job I hadn't even started yet, one co-founder pushing me to come over for an interview and offered to better what ever I'd make at the other place, plus 3 other inquiries.
And all that with a few half decent projects on github and a passionate(I think so) about me thing on the resume.
Granted that there are a lot more better programmers available in the US than there are here in India(my boss was shocked by the level of most coders he interviewed), but still it seems doable - getting a job solely on coding chops.
I'm not saying that if you start applying you'll get a job the next day or even the next week or the next month. I'll be the first one to admit that I got really lucky with the timing(a lot of start ups had put up wanted posts at that time) and with the apparent lack to good programmers who want to work at start ups in India. But unless you apply, you don't find out whether or not you could've got that position you liked.
So code some stuff up, put it online and start applying.