I used to be a java dev, but two years ago when i was introduced to scala i just got stuck in the love of functional programming. Since then i only take permanent jobs in other languages if i have tried and couldn’t get a scala role, the issue i am having is that, for me it is almost impossible to get a scala role for junior to mid level position, in fact i have only been able to get one luckily for the past 2.7 years of using scala after leaving the job where i learnt and searching for scala jobs. most of the job posting are usually looking for some Scala guru who knows typelevel and cats and Zio and other higher kinded functional libraries and frameworks and not interested in otherwise. although i have worked with Akka, play extensively, but i still feel after two years i haven’t had a job or a project or even a person to mentor/show me the way to grow more, since this can only be done by working on projects that uses scala to the core of it like typelevel and higher functional aspects. i have only been able to grow a bit by forcing all personal projects to be written in scala, i still feels like not being a well grounded scala dev like i will like to be, at least not as much as i have been able to grow on other languages and tools i have picked up after i did scala. so my question is, is there anything am supposed to be doing differently as a scala dev to at least be employed at an organisation or be on a project that does core scala and FP so that i can grow more as i would love to. Thanks.
This is my biased opinion:
Foremost, finding scala jobs that actually employs FP principles fully with Scala is not so common, and most have already full capacity.
I’m not considering where are you located and if you’re available to move to some other country.
Remote is not so easy to find and it’s a more competitive context, clearly.
I’d say that Europe has lots of opportunities, especially looking at linked-in posts and a few selected recruitment “agencies” that specialize in Scala and/or FP.
I stay in Nigeria currently and work remotely for a British firm, and we use Scala, but its mostly just managing legacy code and not much fun stuff, which can get really boring fast. i do see a lot of linked-in posts about Scala in Europe, if i would find a job that requires moving i would literally jump at it, but as you said Remote is a more competitive context. its just weird. the growth as a Scala dev is just very slow in this hemisphere as there are only a few companies that uses Scala.
Do you have a Masters or PhD degree?
This usually leads to interesting “jobs” (grants, actually).
No, i dont. well that is interesting. i am a self taught Programmer, CS masters degree are not for my kind i guess? 
Learning Scala, Haskell or much of mind blowing technology is always a self-taught process. Degrees really don’t help there. My suggestion comes from my context of a financially humble academic career (in an area where everybody in the industry seems to be earning 3x more). 
Btw, if anyone has a position to work with such languages or Idris in an academic, scientific or machine learning context please let me know.