How to get programming experience on your own

Question

I know the programming language. What's next? To start earning.

Answer 1

There are a lot of ways you could get some form of experience:
1) Work on complex projects, not like a Todo list, something that may have value to you or anyone else.
2) Contributing to open source projects on GitHub - this is not really something that will give you experience but rather it will show people looking to hire that you are active in coding and it's a good way to learn how to drop comments.
3) You can start freelancing - as in, work on projects for people for free to get some experience. Then when you feel confident enough in your skills, you can ask for compensation

You can add the projects you have worked on to your portfolio, so that you can attract potential hiring managers.

There are probably more ways you could get experience, like participating in hackathons

but all in all, doing all these things will increase your chances of getting hired and start getting paid