> How are you supposed to find out the hiring manager's name from a job post? I'd be curious to hear some of these tricks.

Go to meetups. User's groups. Any gathering of technical people. Important people tend to network, but they may not be the "regulars" as they are busy people.

I know more than a couple of technical/user groups where a relatively unknown person giving a good presentation is likely to wind up with an interview on the spot ... if not an actual consulting/job offer.

The key is a good presentation. The content shows your technical chops and the presentation shows your communication skills.

And, while lots of people say "have a GitHub and reference it", I'm going to caution about this. Just like an art portfolio, only put things you can proud of in there if you're going to make it public and reference it for employment. I may make you show me at the interview on your laptop and talk about it and it shouldn't embarrass you.

(Personally, I don't check GitHub unless someone points me at it explicitly.)