If you have the savings to live comfortably I would suggest you avoid a job. In almost all cases the ratio of awesome learning to repitition and compromise is tiny and it sounds like you want to learn how to do this profession well.

So some of the best practitioners do this for free - in open source development. Find a couple of established projects (mYbe in a domain you understand like film blender3d comes to mind) and join in. Progress from just compiling and testing the code others write to fixing one or two bugs (the time you are ready to contribute a bug fix is the time you look at a bug and say I know where that is failing)

from there most non-poinsonous projects will take you on -find a mentor in the project- does not have to be very formal - do things their way, their setup their indentation style, until you know why you will do it differently.

On the side set up and administer a real live service that has real live people using it. Could be a start up. Could be a saas for a local charity. The main thing is to get a feel for the problems of running a live service.

Do this for 6 months - year. Also exercise and eat well, you may as well. Check back here every few months and after six months, go look for jobs. You will be amazed how much less daunting that whiteboard.

Free advice - worth every Penny