You were working as a professional dev. Don't know why that wouldn't count as experience.
#Does my experience count?
grizzled sapphire
lusty blaze
It probably counts as roughly half time
What sort of job you can get, though, really depends on your skills. Years of experience is just a shorthand for that
lusty blaze
It really depends on the person (and what the company considers that level to be)
But sure, one year or one and half years are what you can tell a recruiter if you're forced to give a number. If they're only interested in the number and not a short description of what's happened then they aren't usually a good recruiter though, in my experience