Software Developer questions (headhunters, look for a job, college)

[plantice]

Hello All,

So wife and I are moving sometime in march to washington. I should be able to keep my 63k a year job and she is currently working odd jobs as the city i am in doesnt have graphic design jobs for her. We are currently looking to get a 2k place in either issaquah or kirkland, while we look for new jobs.

A little bit about my background, I work in a small college town in california. I started doing mainly bug fixing but after a year of that I did a front end cosmetic change(html/css) by myself(with an overseer). After that I worked in an agile team to fix bugs in a new project(javascript, jquery, asp.net, Restful, ajax), then I supported that project for another year(learning server setups, iis permissions). Now I am on consulting like duties(outside paid projects). I want to advance my career but not quite sure the best approach. I would rather work for smaller companies than larger as I like the more personal feel. Some over the phone interviews said I would be a good canidate for a jr. dev(I know I'm not as advance as most ppl in seattle but 4 years has to count for something)

Skills: C#,asp.net webforms, javascript,jquery are the mains. I know enough html/css to fix/change things but not enough to build ground up. 4yrs total of experience.

My question for software developer are as following:

What type of company to apply for to learn quickly?
How hard is it to look for a job if your not picky?
What's the best way to network before and after I get there?
What kind of wage should I realistically be looking at?( avg was about 90k)

Thanks all. Just kinda stressing right now, would hate to spend all the money to move and then fail.

[PNWGuy]

Headhunters/contracting companies are a dime a dozen up there. Get your resume in order, post your resume to some job board (career builder, dice, LinkedIn), you will be contacted in no time. At the same time, seek out major companies like Volt now, although they will tell you it will be much easier to land a job once you get there. Working contracts is a great way to get experience quickly. Sometimes the contract is not ideal, but you get a paycheck and you are going to learn something. Once you are local and you have enough experience under your belt, you become more marketable. Don't know what wage to expect, guessing $35-$45/hr for junior dev in that area.