How to become a peer-reviewer? I am in an interesting situation, I have a masters degree in electrical engineering but have been working as a software engineer for about 10 years. I have a lot of interest in doing peer reviews and contributing to research part-time in computer science. But I find it very hard to convince anyone to let me review their work.

My question is, is it possible to do so while working in a day job? If so, how can one go about signing up to do peer reviews? All the journals seems to want to see credibility before you can peer-review any articles or papers.

How can one get started midway through their work career?
As an editor, when I need peer-reviewers, if I don't know someone with expertise in the topic at hand, I look to see who has published peer-reviewed work in a similar area recently. No-one signs up to do reviews, it's up to me to go out and find them. Which means, if you haven't published peer-reviewed work recently, you aren't likely to get any invitations.

So, in my case, if you want to do peer-reviews, the first step is publishing something in a peer-reviewed journal. Otherwise, no one will know you're there.

This doesn't mean someone who isn't publishing is never qualified to provide a peer review. But if I don't know you, and you haven't published anything yourself, I have no way to evaluate if you are qualified to provide a good review. 

Another thing to keep in mind is that the distinction between an interesting paper, and an interesting publishable paper, may not be clear to someone who isn't actively pursuing academic work in the area.