Two pieces of advice based on my experience (10+ years).*

1. Expand your net to "non-sexy" companies and organizations. Instead of a start-up building yet another app in the same space, look at legacy companies that offer real UX challenges. If you want to take on a self-initiated project that will help you stand out from the crowd, do a heuristic analysis and improved user flows for any state's unemployment benefits portal, or the Social Security.gov site: platforms that are (painfully) used by millions of people.

2. What differentiates senior from junior UX professionals is know what techniques and processes to use for the project at hand. You may have learned a structured process in a bootcamp. In real life, you rarely follow that. You need to learn how to define the problem, understand business goals, and be judicious in choosing the best way to answer the right questions.

*I began my journey into UX design by starting to teach myself user-centered design while working at a university, on websites for history teachers. Then I was hired as the only UX designer for a TINY edtech startup. Got laid off, and eventually secured a senior role at PBS, working on websites for classroom teachers, and parents. Not sexy, not going to win UI design awards, but intellectually stimulating challenges to improve the platform, built with a legacy CMS.