Work with a recruiter who actually speaks your language.
I’m a CPAN and GitHub contributor, and BackPan tells me that when Jan 1st 2000 rolled around, I uploaded a Perl module to the CPAN instead of recovering from a hangover like most normal 17 year olds.
I ran London’s largest Perl team when I was CTO at Broadbean Technology, I’ve worked as a Perl contractor at companies like the BBC, the Guardian, and NET-A-PORTER, and I’ve been an active part of the Perl community for somewhere between 15 and 20 years, depending on how you count it!
When I was in high-school, I wrote a series of Perl-related articles for The Perl Journal and O’Reilly to get my pocket money (which have aged badly), spoke at the first Perl conference in London.
We probably have an ex-coworker in common, or crossed paths at a conference. You can get in touch with me by emailing pete@perl.careers.