
Ask HN: How did you get to your current job/startup? - arsalanb
We all see &quot;success stories&quot; featured on internet blogs (basically every website with the &quot;tech&quot; prefix) and some trends tend to distort how we perceive how people arrived at where they are.<p>I want to know — How did you get your current job or startup? Did you go to college? Dropout? If your did go to college, have you ever failed a course? Did you have to move to a different country? How did you manage that and what was (in general) the biggest obstacle&#x2F;low-point of your journey so far?<p>Note — Why I&#x27;m asking this: Because many of the people in this community may be in a low-point themselves, and reading about how other people persevered and what they did might just make things seem a bit easier for them.<p>Thank you all :)
======
chrissnell
41 years old now. Failed out of a top-ten college. Went to work assembling
trophies for minimum wage. Lived in a shitty apartment and hung out with
people going nowhere. Felt doomed. Got interested in Linux (early 94). Took a
job as tech support at local ISP. Accepted back into same top-ten school.
Dropped out a year later. Moved to SFBA and took low-wage job as a junior
sysadmin with early cable ISP startup. Left after six months and moved back
home. Built successful e-commerce startup around my family's brick-and-mortar
business (1995). Moved to Utah to ski and work for another startup. Then LA,
Boston, and DC for more startup stints as a sysadmin. Back to college to
finish degree. Moved to Utah again to do sysadmin work for backcountry.com.
Later became manager over the systems, network, and desktop support teams.
Moved back home to work for Rackspace. Stayed there six years. Got married.
Commissioned in the Army Reserve and spent six months away doing initial
training. Had two kids. Moved to WA.

Currently Director of Technical Operations for a SFO-based SaaS company. I
have an office here in Washington state. I've been here two years. Make great
money. Love my job tremendously. Every day seems amazing that I get paid this
well to do what I love. Extremely grateful.

Bottom line: I've seen some shit and some hard times. Never give up. Keep
working hard and it will get better.

~~~
bkjelden
What do you think you've learned from living/working in so many different
cities?

I love hearing advice and insight from people who've lived in a lot of
different US cities. What similarities they've noticed, what differences, etc.

~~~
chrissnell
In general, I don't put much value in moving around a lot. I was still pretty
immature in my early years in the industry and did what many young twenty-
somethings do--try out a job, then leave when it gets boring. I bounced around
a lot like this. As I grew older, I grew to appreciate the benefits of
sticking with one thing for 2+ years: the seniority, the promotions, the
advanced knowledge you develop, etc.

My favorite place to live, hands down, was Utah. I really enjoyed my time
there. I lived in Park City, UT for both stints. It's a ski town and totally
different from how many might conceive Utah. The pay in Utah was never amazing
but I got by. Now that I've been working remote for 6 years, I can picture
going back to a place like Park City. Mid-sized, activity-focused towns in the
Mountain West are awesome.

------
robgibbons
Almost failed high school (wasn't interested). Never went to college (didn't
even apply).

Eventually, after coding through my teens, I founded a web development agency
with some friends to build websites for money, while bootstrapping the
development of a few web apps. All of them failed. I had severe imposter
syndrome. Didn't help that my family had to sell our house while I was
bootstrapping a startup, so I was basically homeless for a year.

Ultimately, one day I just realized that through all that hard work, I had
somehow already made it, and that I was in fact a real developer, as
knowledgeable as even my most CS-pedigreed friends coming out of school. It's
about the learning, not the piece of paper.

Once I realized the true value that my skills and experience bring to the
table, I began interviewing more confidently and negotiating more
aggressively.

Fast-forward a few years, a few positions and companies later, and I am making
over six figures with virtually no degrees or certifications, or student debt.

Uncertainty and doubt are not things to be feared; they keep you on your toes,
hungry, and constantly learning, and that's how you beat college graduates in
the job market. Don't succumb to imposter syndrome.

~~~
scottndecker
Just curious, how old were you when you hit the 6 figure salary and which city
was that in?

~~~
shams93
In Los Angeles most positions are really dead end, by the time 6 figures
became the norm the housing market here plus the additional taxes on
california for singles has turned 6 figures into bare survival money. The
attitude of most employers in Los Angeles is that you're essentially a slave
and as a tech person you're about as important to them as a maggot, your
talents are taken for granted and yeah I have a job but I have to work over
140 hours a week for 40 hours pay. My parents body blocked me from being a
part of the Stanford class of 94 despite being a legacy, that was one of those
cases where I needed to run away from home and walk from LA to Palo Alto
against my parents' will lol.

~~~
totalrobe
140 / 7 = 20. You eat sleep and shit for a combined 4 hours a day?

~~~
kamaal
Not sure why that is surprising to a lot of people. I have done near 18-20
hour work days(Sometimes going without sleep 2 days at a time), during many
parts in my life(A few years at a time). In college, while at work, while
building my own start up.

The last time I worked like that was when I was working on bootstrapping a
start up while having a day job. I did close to a 20 hour schedule for around
4 years. This was only a year back, when I decided to take a break for an year
or so.

Hardwork doesn't always give you results, But not working hard almost
certainly doesn't. Well unless you have rich parents, or in-laws, or spouse or
you inherit money someway- Or you are plain lucky to have god fathers in the
industry bailing you out time to time, taking care of your career and
financial growth.

For every body else its the plain old brutal torture.

~~~
totalrobe
Sure, most of us have experienced this kind of schedule short term, but I
don't know anyone that is actually effective doing this long term.

There are some human anomalies that can thrive on that little amount of sleep
but I would think for most people this would lead to poor productivity at best
and be extremely detrimental to health at worst.

------
rubidium
I was emailing any technical contact I could find at all the interesting
companies in my city. I was following up all these emails with phone calls
when I could get a number.

I found a blog article interviewing one of the researchers (call him Bob) at
"Company A".

I sent this email that eventually led to my job:

Hello Bob,

I've been researching [Company A] and came across this article from [BLOG
SITE] that featured some of your work. I'm quite impressed with your
assessment of the need for better data analysis tools in the [AREA OF
RESEARCH], and the work you get to do in that area interests me. I found from
your linkedin profile that part of your current research with the Company A
Research Group is on [technical area I talk about below].

My recent PhD work at [University] involved a number of overlaps with your
current work, both in technology ([short example]) and modeling physical
processes ([short example]).

I am now looking for industry jobs in [City]. The Company A Research Group may
be a good fit, but first I would like to learn more about what you do. Can you
meet for coffee to discuss?

Best regards, -[my name]

He responded and asked for a resume. After further conversations, it turned
out they didn't have room in their group (headcount freeze in their
department) but we found another group at the company that needed someone with
my skills. I was then "the guy Bob knows" during the interviews (which helped)
and landed the job.

------
chrisaycock
I got my current job through Stack Overflow. I answered a bunch of C++
questions on there, which I used as my "portfolio" when I applied to companies
that list on SO Careers.

As for my resume, I have a PhD in computer science from Oxford. I also spent a
year in Australia on a fellowship. Since I'm American, I came back to the US
to work in quantitative finance, which is the field I've been in for almost
nine years now---four at my current place.

So that sounds impressive. Now I'm going to explain how close all of this came
to not happening...

I grew-up in the rural deep South. My parents were extremely well educated and
well traveled, but they had careers that didn't make any money. So I basically
put myself through school. I got some scholarships and I taught part-time, but
I had to take-out a lot of loans in the end. By the time I returned to the US,
I had over $100K in debt from students loans and credit cards.

I didn't manage to get a job when I first got back to the States. I moved to
NYC anyway and couch-surfed with every friend I could think of. (I ran-out of
people I know, so I ended-up in a hostel for a few weeks.) I'm a fencer, so I
refereed college fencing tournaments for enough money to eat.

It took five months to get my first quant job. The job I have now is the
fourth such role because the first three trading desks I worked for all ran
into the ground one way or another.

Along the way I had a big healthcare issue that resulted in surgery. That took
years to prepare for and to heal from.

And since you ask about failing a class, I never made below a B- in a course,
but I did fail my thesis defense the first time around. I had to resubmit my
dissertation with a ton of changes to pass. (By the way, I got rejected from
every grad school I applied to except for Oxford.)

So when you think that your current path is difficult, just know that I have
survived two recessions (dot-com and financial crisis) and been turned-down
from most jobs I've applied to.

I have three pieces of advice for you. Firstly, always be frugal. Despite my
heavy debt when I returned to the US, I actually have flawless credit since
I've never paid a bill late. That kind of history comes in handy a lot.

Secondly, always keep learning. Especially in my field, I have to keep-up
constantly, which means following Hacker News, reading ACM/IEEE, taking MOOCs,
etc.

And third, make friends. Help-out other people as often as you can. You will
need them in the future.

------
J-dawg
I'm looking forward to the responses to this. I came to programming later than
most (early 30s), and it's been a real struggle to break into it
professionally. I have occasional low points when I wonder what I could have
achieved if I'd started on this path in my teens or 20s. It's a waste of time
and brain power to dwell on regrets, but it's hard not to sometimes. It would
be cool to read some success stories from people who have persevered through
difficult times.

~~~
isxek
You're not the only one, friend. :)

------
tylerlarson
I'm 33 now. I was an artist/painter. In about 1998 I started messing with
computer animation. I went to art school and found my computer experience was
more useful and stopped painting. My animations slowly became scripted with,
Director's Lingo, Flash's ActionScript (a flavor of ECMAScript), and Maya's
Mel(a flavor of C). Through all of these I learned the basics of programming
and I was able to get work far exceeding what I ever dreamed of being possible
as an Artist. I was interested in the internet as a place to make creative
things and was able to get paid creating for people. I graduated college in
2004, the first real salary position I had was at a large advertising agency I
got through a recruiter. I stayed for a few years doing work for huge clients
and learning how to program and design better end products. In 2005 I joined
an ActionScript user group and later that year started a company with two
other friends from this. We learned Ruby on Rails and accepted any work we
could find. We never quoted enough, we never agreed on anything, and we all
learned a lot before totally failing. Through this I helped build a few MVP's
for some startups. When the company folded I jumped from one startup to
another building larger and more well crafted applications. Through this time
I kept going to meetup groups and all of my work connections have been through
relationships with people that I have met at them. I've been at my current
startup for 5 years.

------
martin-adams
I started my own company (to be a freelancer) at age 18 when I went to uni. I
had a family friend who was a programmer who I teamed up with.

After uni I joined IBM as a graduate. I kept freelancing in my spare time and
helped my brother build a successful e-commerce company over the past 11
years.

In 2012 I left full time employment and continued freelancing to two regular
clients.

In 2013 I built an MVP to be notified of changes on a web page, and while at
an E-commerce trade show, I asked the CEO of a company exhibiting the question
about how they get client e-commerce products into their system without any
technical integration.

This resulting in me creating a second MVP to scrape e-commerce data for
retailers wanting to sell on marketplaces. The CEO spent the following 6
months convincing me to be their CTO, which I've been doing for the past 2.5
years now.

So yeah, my future changed very drastically based on me deciding to wait a few
more minutes to see if the CEO was free to have a chat. I could easily have
walked away instead. Still looking forward to that feeling of 'success' but I
know I've moved a long way over the years. I've learnt that if you focus on
building up a network of contacts and actually getting to know them, you give
yourself many more opportunities than you would otherwise have.

However, except with my getting into IBM, my university education hasn't
played a significant role. Owning my own company, doing real work and
continually learning and building has been critical.

------
zym
My current status: CTO of an online education company.

How did you get your current job or startup?

> Friend's recommendation.

Did you go to college? Dropout?

> Yes, top 1 university in China. And yes for dropout, I quit my master when
> there was about 3 months close to my M.E. degree.

If your did go to college, have you ever failed a course?

> No.

Did you have to move to a different country?

> No.

How did you manage that and what was (in general) the biggest obstacle/low-
point of your journey so far?

> I worked for a U.S. based company for almost 8 years and they kicked me out
> for bad performance when I didn't work as much as before (at least 12 hours
> per day, 7 days a week) because my son got seriously ill and I needed time
> to take care of him. Then I did some freelancing but got a really bad agency
> ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10433237](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10433237)).
> I lost my job, my savings and almost my son too.

During then, I was close to lose hope of life for several times. But my family
kept me up. We lived a very low cost life for about half a year, during when I
did some work for a friend who runs a small business and used that income
together with my wife's (totally a little lower than 3000 USD per month) to
support a family of four. You may think that was not a small amount but
Beijing's living cost is very close to SF. That barely covered the rent, food,
clothing and tuition.

I kept doing the contracting job for my friend and I did it well. I worked 20
hours a day and managed to get one of his projects done within 1 month instead
of 2 that we agreed on. I had to because that was the only way for me to
generate enough income. I kept this performance and workload. He was impressed
and later on when a friend of his asked about a candidate for CTO position, he
recommended me. Now I have built up a team and work very happily. I am paying
off my debts month by month.

I think I may have been slightly off topic. It's just I feel I need to tell
someone my experience. Life had been tough on me for the past 2015 but I am
glad I never gave up, and have a supportive family.

------
martiuk
I'm 23 and I started out as an IT support apprentice 4 years ago after
dropping out of college (high school?) twice here in the UK, then after
working a few different jobs, working up from application support to
build/release engineer. I'm now a contract software engineer with a
significant day rate. I'm now working in the evenings and weekends to take the
next step and create a product to sell, just don't have a "good" idea yet.

------
hookshot
I started learning HTML / PHP when I was 14. It took me 10 years to get decent
at it. I dropped out of school when I was 15. I worked odd jobs; settled on
working as a bike mechanic. Did that while doing random programming gigs on
the side.

A few years ago I worked at a bike shop where I was salaried and the owner
wasn't paying overtime. After working way too many unpaid hours in a week, a
pointed out that it was illegal. Ended in a 'well prove it' argument so I did.
Got my overtime, then left the company since it was super stressful and
uncomfortable after that.

After that I pushed shopping carts at Lowes all day, then came home and
practiced programming and did random Odesk jobs. It sucked. At this point I
finally learned enough OOP and Mysql that everything clicked and I started
learning a lot faster from there.

Another bike shop finally had an opening, so I went there. I moved on to a
sailboat and saved enough money to try freelancing. I did freelance work for a
while. After that I tried to start an IoT startup. The stress totally
destroyed me and I was broke. After our big contract fell through, I applied
to a local software company and got the job. Did that for a while and now I
write software for a startup in the bay area.

------
burner8498165
29 y/o. Did well in high school, didn't do to well in my school's comp sci
program (only minored).

At work, adopted a policy to always try to own more things and make things
easier for others (particularly those above me) without becoming a silo for
information. Write everything down, make it accessible, and give people status
updates (which include any accomplishments) before they ever need to ask for
them. Then, just get to work, and own things as much as possible. Because of
this, I was able to show ownership above my given position for every single
job, which really helped when the next opportunity came along. Additionally,
always be learning / focused on continuous improvement. If you can constantly
be thinking about ways to chart a path forward and suggesting those things
when they make sense, you work to make everyone's life easier.

You also have to know your market and not be afraid to leave whenever the
writing is on the wall or when you feel your ownership is limited. Leaving for
those reasons rarely leads to hard feelings; if you leave because you want
better ownership in helping your company but aren't granted it, and have a
track record of success, usually people don't want to see you go and you'll
leave on good terms.

With this outlook, I went from a college grad in 2009 making 45k/year, and 6
years later I'm about to lead a team at 185k/year with a 40 hour work week
(and paid overtime, somehow). Which reminds me: also, be grateful -- we work
in an industry that gives us a ton of opportunity.

Ownership, proactive communication, continuous improvement, and knowing your
market/value.

~~~
tixocloud
That's a really good story. Are you leading a technical team?

------
crisopolis
27 years old, almost 28 in 11 days. I passed high school some how I was like
#534 out of #540 of the class. I was accepted to sub-campus college dropped
out and then I was accepted into another sub-campus college kicked out for low
GPA. I started my working career as a Pharmacy Technician for a local grocer
then in 2006 I changed companies to work as a Pharmacy Technician for a health
insurance company.

While working at this new employer I was able to show my superiors I knew how
to provide solutions to their problems without the need for IT overhead. So I
created a basic CRM in MS Access that integrated with our autodialer, pharmacy
system, fax system this system was used to outreach members about a pharmacy
benefit of switching to a cheaper generic drug rather than the expensive drug
they were taking. At this point my title then changed to Analyst.

After that journey I decided to switch roles within the same company and move
to Florida where I was given the title of Applications Engineer. I worked on a
Care Management system for remote nurses going in-home to at-risk members.
This system was horrid and looked like Windows 98 ... so I asked if I could
re-build it with a JavaScript/Bootstrap front-end and re-wire a bit of the
backend with the other 6 engineers on the team. My request was granted and I
was tasked to other projects to beautify and re-engineer.

Now I'm a Systems Analyst for a Oracle-owned Talent Management System with the
same company (7 years) ... pretty much doing configuration, answering
questions and consulting.

So... I really want a programming job (I'm looking) and now I'm just working
on a side-project to make a Talent Management System better than Oracle's
piece of shit.

------
PaulHoule
High school was hell to me, I would come home crying every night.

Things changed when I met the new physics teacher, a retiree from the Air
Force, and even though I never took his class, I would spend study time at the
lab repairing old hardware and doing experiments with them.

I went to New Mexico Tech which is an inexpensive state school that punches
above it's weight, I think I was going to get a D in German once but I dropped
the course.

I got into a Physics PhD program at Cornell, where I met my wife. Grad school
was great fun, but somehow my working-class upbringings made me not fit in
with academic culture. After a postdoc in Germany, wound up settling near
Ithaca because my wife has family in Binghamton, and she now runs a busy but
low key riding academy.

Since then I have alternated of times of W2 employment vs 1099 vs true self
employment. Around 2000 to 2003 I was highly active in politics.

The overall trajectory has been up but definitely with setbacks. Along the way
I have learned to love people, including myself, much more. My family is a joy
and a challenge to be my best.

After chopping wood and carrying water in the web industry for almost a
decade, I developed a specialty and have been turning it into a business.

------
lghh
23 years old.

I graduated from a low income high school in 2010 with good enough grades and
I took most of the AP courses that my school had to offer (which was not
many). I frequently didn't go to school and most of the time would drive
around during the day or hang out at a friend's house.

I went to a local community college (that offered free tuition to students at
my HS) for journalism because I didn't know what else to do. It was too much
like high school and I had classes with all the people I was trying to get
away from. I stopped going, failed all my classes.

Worked at a electronics store for a a year while I figured out what I wanted
to do.

Decided to go back to school without really knowing what I wanted to do.
Enrolled in CS at like the 4th best university in the area, so not a great
school - but I ended up liking it a lot. I didn't have much math in high
school, so I didn't have the natural inclination, and I didn't put forth the
effort so I did poorly. I failed Calc 1 and 2 and made a C in them and in Calc
3 when I passed. I did well in my CS courses, As and Bs.

I have about 6 classes left after this semester - I had trouble going full
time because I am married and work ~40 hours a week fixing computers or
waiting tables and don't work as hard as I should sometimes.

8 months ago I got an internship at a pretty big company that opened a branch
in my city. The internship turned into a job. It's mostly SQL Server stuff,
and a few small desktop apps. It's not my favorite but my bosses are nice and
it's close to my house.

I recently got offered a job at a small web development company that I got in
contact with through a friend. I start there in 2 weeks.

------
dochtman
I completed CS, but failed lots of courses the first time around. I think I
did some exams 5 times before I passed (this might be easier in Dutch
universities than in the US system). I put off my Master's thesis for a few
years while I worked a full-time job, then switched subjects and managed to
complete it anyway (9 years after I started). That first job was with a
startup I co-founded, where my opportunities for growth sort of fizzled out
after five years. After six, I quit, posted my resume online in a few places
and got a nice new job through a recruiting agency. Started in the new job as
a C++ engineer and was promoted to a management role in 6 months... Lots of
challenges!

------
gedrap
It's a chain of events that started ~7 years ago that lead to me joining this
company in early 2015.

Around the year 2009, I helped some random person on the internet to setup a
wordpress blog. We stayed a bit in contact, got some freelance work because of
recommendations from her but that's about it. In late 2013, she asked me if I
can help with a little project, sure. Other guy was working on it too, we
stayed in touch.

He, my new friend, kept trying to convince me to join the company he's working
for, but at the time I was living in England and the company was based in
Lithuania (I'm a Lithuanian) and I loved Manchester too much to leave.

Time went by, and in late 2014 I started to look for a new job. The same
friend asked me whether I'd consider joining the same company now (meaning
moving across Europe), I thought ok, I will chat with them, nothing to lose.

It seemed like a good company to work for, interesting new challenges. After
thinking for a couple of weeks and working remotely for a couple of months
(temporary agreement, probation period kind of), I bought a one way to ticket
Lithuania. Never regretted. Although still the amount of luck and all involved
in this is still mind blowing. If I wasn't browsing that forum that night a
few years ago, I wouldn't be where I am now.

------
joesmo
Taught myself and started programming in 6th grade (around 12) and made a
bunch of small games / demos (QBasic, C, C++). I went to college looking for
an English degree (wanted to be a writer) on a full scholarship but graduated
with two degrees in Philosophy. Spent about a year temp working for $11/hr
hiring contractors and telemarketing for a big home improvement chain. After a
year of that, spent about another half a year temping and finally got a job at
a university close by managing schedules (SQL, Access, VBA). A couple of
months after, I got a call from my sister's old boss who had seen my code from
high school and needed a Javascript programmer. Got the job having never
written a line of JS, learned JS in two weeks, and worked there for about
three years. Moved to SF when they opened up an office out there. Did 6 years
of contracting / working various jobs, then moved back east. After coming back
east, I got contacted on Stackoverflow careers by my current company, a small
bay area company. They indicated they'd be ok with a remote worker and now
after a year and a half, they want me to take over all tech operations and be
the CTO. Planning to travel around Europe next year while still working here.

------
shawndumas
I was graduated from HS. I didn't graduate, they graduated me. You hear about
people being graduated without the requisite credits in NY in the 80's and I
was one of them.

My mom threw me out when I was 17 and I got into a lot of trouble.

I worked as a squid, a delivery person (when my car would work), and, finally
I landed a real job as a data entry person.

I was the worst data entry person.

I have dysgraphia, cannot touch type, and am a world class champion of bad
spelling. Not a good combination for transcribing acuities from intraocular
lens follow ups.

My supervisor was on vacation and the manager needed a report for the FDA so,
eager to help, I set about trying to convince paradox (a 4GL) to give me what
was required.

I got the report to print but the sorting was all wrong. It was in date order
and not grouped by model. Finally, by looking through the in-line help system
(1992, no googling), I figured it out and got the report to my manager.

His reaction was not what I expected; he looked exceedingly perplexed.

"Something wrong?"

"It's grouped!", he replied.

"Isn't that the way it should be?", I responded.

He then proceeded to explain two things; he had been asking for the report
this way for months, and I was going to be terminated that day.

The best part was that, unbeknownst to me, they were shipping the S/38 from
Virginia and needed an operator to work from 12 noon till 3 am and—instead of
being fired—I was just about to be offered a new job!

------
kaitari
I'm 32 now. I dropped out of High School out of disinterest and obtained a
GED. My interest was in computers; I spent my teenage years coding and
(re)assembling computers.

My first job was an intern at a Help Desk for a media company, making minimum
wage ($5.25 at the time, iirc). Toward the end of my internship I accepted an
offer to continue working full-time, making 18k/yr. "You don't have a college
degree," was the justification for that amount. I excelled technically,
eventually taking on a more sysadmin role. After 1 1/2 years I began to
question why I still made significantly less than my college-educated
colleagues, even though I became a lead with way more responsibilities.
Angered, I took the ACT exam, applied to state universities, was accepted, and
left for college.

I switched majors from CS to Broadcasting during my freshman year because I
was bored with the intro courses. In retrospect, this decision helped me
become a more social person, as the Broadcasting/Communications curriculum
forced me to work with others and do a lot of public speaking. I somehow
managed to graduate in 4 yrs (I was lazy, hated doing papers and taking
exams).

That was 8 years and three jobs ago. I now work at a well-known tech company
making over six figures. All of my jobs up until now were because I knew
someone and had the technical ability. I applied to work at my current job
because I wanted to work for a tech company with a tech culture (previously
all media + very corporate).

TL;DR - I despise school. All of my technical skills are self-taught. All of
my jobs up until the present one were obtained because I knew someone and had
the technical ability.

------
lojack
Low point was probably around my second year of college when I realized I
wanted to be in a different major and failed or dropped almost all of my
classes. Applied to a different program at my school and got rejected because
of the previous semesters failure. Luckily I had already begun taking all the
CS101 coursework and aced everything that semester, reapplied and got in the
second time.

Got an internship some time after that. I didn't have the greatest GPA, and
had to drop a few classes. I'm not the greatest student for a formal
education, but I'm genuinely interested in a lot of stuff and pretty good at
self-educating things that matter to me. Performed good enough on the job to
get a full-time position without an interview.

From there I went into business with a close friend doing agency work. We
eventually went through a tough time business wise and got acqui-hired by a
larger agency.

Second low point was around then when our business hinged on getting one big
client. We pitched the business and didn't end up getting it. Luckily we were
already in talks with the agency that acqui-hired us, so we used that as a
fallback. It was a good fallback for us, the pay is good, but it isn't a
startup :-)

------
Bahamut
31 years old - in a couple of days I reach my 3rd year anniversary in the
industry.

I had the typical profile of a student who was going to get into any college I
wanted (700+ on both math & verbal on the SAT I, 740 in Math in 7th grade, 800
on the SAT II Math 2C in 8th grade, 730+ on 5 SAT IIs, including Writing,
captain of varsity tennis team for 4 years, played varsity for 5, etc.), but
ended up not getting admitted to any of them, in large part due to my bad
college essay. I went to a state school in NY instead, and entered college
with 56 college credits (including Calculus III/Multivariable Calculus &
Linear Algebra in 10th grade, and college chemistry & differential equations
courses). I was a bit of a bad student in college - failed 3 courses in my
majors (math & mathematical physics) in part due to laziness. After my second
year, I turned around my work ethic and started working hard again of my own
volition, and excelled.

I dropped out of my PhD math program at UIUC after 4 years, largely due to
extra-academic issues. Spent 2 1/2 years looking for a career track job - I
was willing to do whatever it took, I even enlisted in the Marine Corps
Reserve to try to get a better chance. 2 years into the search, I got fed up
looking for any sort of job, so then I started teaching myself programming. A
half year later, I got my first job, but my efforts at learning did not stop
there - I experimented with tech from didn't languages/platforms from Java,
Scala, Ruby, Python, PHP, and Node.js. My first job also had me doing
frontend, and using angular.js just before it became hot. I was mentored to
drill down into source code to figure things out. I also lurked in the angular
IRC channel and asked for help once in a while, but also tried to help as many
people as possible.

As I spent more time in the angular community & using angular, I became
uncommonly versed in the intricacies of the framework, and picked up being
disciplined in writing unit tests. This turns out to translate very well in
the profession, and I have been able to turn this to become a lead frontend
engineer at one point - I switched jobs 4 times so far, and am currently a
senior engineer who does some open source in my spare time (lead development
on UI Bootstrap, developer for the ng-bootstrap & UI Router projects,
occasionally contribute to Angular).

Some luck, and self-initiative, hard work, and smart decision making has
helped me succeed.

------
drakonka
I'm 27. I didn't go to college and got my first job in games as Junior QA
Tester at the one "real" games company in Western Australia at the time. After
3 months I was promoted to Senior QA, then the company went down. I freelanced
doing software QA and web development for local independent games companies
and other clients, as well as contracting doing web dev at a government
agency. At the time was making 6 figures and living comfortably.

Eventually I wanted to go back to games, but Australia at the time wasn't a
great place for that and I knew I would have to move. I got my Australian
citizenship (originally Ukrainian) and spent a year cutting down my work hours
and spending all spare time focusing on making games in JS to build up my
portfolio and learn.

Ended up moving to Sweden on a Working Holiday visa with about a year's worth
of savings and looking for work. Got a job as a Build Manager. Took a heavy
pay cut from my freelance salary, but the work was worth it. That was 3 years
ago. Currently I'm an SE in Build with a heavy focus on automated testing.

------
brianlweiner
Graduated with a Computer Engineering degree in 2009. Got a job with feds at
Ft Monmouth engineering center. Base was closed due to BRAC in 2010/11.

Didn't want to relocate to MD at the time so I started a consulting company
with 2 other friends from college. We build rails apps / did other misc
ecommerce work mostly learning as we went.

Did that until this past summer when I took a full time position at STAQ in
Baltimore. I had decided to take a job with more reliable income / benefits to
allow my wife to return to school full-time. Since the majority of my recent
development experience was in Rails, I made a list of local or remote-friendly
companies who had a similar stack and I sent out emails with cover letters and
code samples.

I found STAQ via their recruitment website -
[https://programmerswanted.staq.com/](https://programmerswanted.staq.com/).
Mike, our CTO, got back to me super fast and we scheduled an interview which
went well and led to an offer. Very happy with my current position and
enjoying the new challenges.

------
Dachande663
Tweeted I was looking for a job over Summer between Uni semesters. Had my
interview on CoD4. Worked there over Summer.

They liked me enough they offered me an intership. Used it to build my
dissertation project.

When I finished Uni I looked around at who was hiring. The guys I'd worked
with offered more than anyone else and were working on some seriously cool
projects compared to anyone else.

~~~
arsalanb
What's CoD4? (I may have rather stupidly assumed this is the fourth call of
duty video game)

~~~
Dachande663
It was indeed, Modern Warfare. This was back in 2007 so it had just launched
and when I mentioned maybe Skypeing we both found we already had headsets and
played most nights anyway so we just set up a private chat and shot at each
other.

~~~
arsalanb
Wow. This is the most unique setups I've heard. I did hear once about a person
who got an internship at Facebook (if I recall correctly) over online in-game
chat.

------
pilom
BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2009 but the recession and my now
wife convinced me to stick around for another year to get my masters. Got a
job with a defense contractor which inflated my salary about ~15% compared to
peers b/c I could get a security clearance. After 3 years of that I wasn't
happy and posted resumes on Dice and flushed out my LinkedIn profile.
Recruiters started banging down my door. It was just a matter of holding out
until one that could meet my salary requirements (100k+) came along. Ended up
doing cyber security at a telcom, but ended up unhappy with the culture there
after about 9 months so I updated my resumes and profiles again and added the
"will only work remotely" requirement. Took about 3 months of actively
searching and talking to recruiters but one came along and after some
aggressive salary negotiations I started working remotely full time for a
nutrition supplement company doing DevOps.

------
grdeken
I couldn't afford to finish the last semester of college. Lived with some
other friends in a not-so-nice area of town, riding a moped a few miles to
work for a company to learn internet marketing while getting paid $7.00 an
hour.

Started my own web design and internet marketing shop, which proved to be much
harder than I thought because I didn't know shit about running a business.
Caught a break with a startup building out their website and web assets and
doing marketing. Marketing director got fired, I filled that role and got a
raise.

Left that company after two years to co-found a startup. Raised a little
money. Tought myself product design and front-end.

Startup was unsuccessful, but I used the skills I learned to land a gig at MIT
doing product design and front-end dev. Did that for a while. Jumped from 40k
to almost 100k.

Left MIT to lead product at a vc backed startup making 6 figures with a good
bit of equity. That's where I am today.

Tomorrow, who knows...

------
gkop
Played with programming from age 7 to 17 (basic, php, java). Went to a decent
public university (blessed with a full scholarship), not very motivated, got a
BA in creative writing, 3.1 GPA, but squeezed in two CS classes during that
time. _Later went back very motivated to same university for BS in CS, 3.9
GPA, completed in 4 semesters (consecutive, including a summer term), no
scholarship, total tuition cost ~$28K_. Worked out really well for me -
definitely got my value for the 18 months and $28K to get CS degree - learned
a ton. Been working in start ups ever since. I wish more universities were
welcoming of students to return like mine was, I am super grateful for the
second chance. Sharing my story as a counterpoint to the overwhelming cynicism
about universities in the United States. I am 29 now.

------
petercooper
Left school at 16, did some early "new media" Web design related jobs
(1998-1999), realized working for other people wasn't my bag and became a very
poorly paid freelance developer and designer for several years (through the
dotcom boom) mostly as I had no idea what to charge.

Throughout this time I kept playing with things I liked the look of, blogged a
lot, generally spent a lot of time online. I picked up Ruby and Rails and a
publisher who saw my blog wanted me to write a book. I did, launched a blog to
promote the book, the blog became the most popular Ruby blog for several years
and a business in its own right. I then branched it out into email and now run
an email newsletter business with 5 employees. (Most of this last paragraph
has taken 11 years - I first picked up Ruby in November 2004.)

------
robotnoises
Lots of luck + some hard work.

Graduated from a decent state school with a degree in English and started
working for a small publishing company as an "editor." The luck part was that
the company was so incredibly cheap that rather than hiring a person with real
programming skills, they opted to repurpose a young person (me) with some
technology knowhow to do some programming for internal stuff at a fraction of
the cost. Went back to college for a few semesters (on their dime) for a CS
degree but never finished.

I built-up an okay portfolio + work experience and landed a job at a very
small software company. Worked there for a while, landed a better job at a
bigger company, rinse, repeat.

I'm making a good living now doing something that I really enjoy. I still
can't believe this is how things turned out.

~~~
arsalanb
Hey, come on, give yourself the due credit. You probably put in more hard work
than you give yourself credit for :)

~~~
robotnoises
Perhaps, but honestly I doubt I would have considered this as a career path
without the early "break."

------
smcavinney1
I went to a Bible College for a year and a half before dropping out. The
dropout was not really due to a lack of interest in the subjects, but just a
really poor work ethic on my part.

I landed a job in medical magazine recruitment advertising sales after a
friend referred me in. I had no idea what I was doing, but I did well after
some sales training. Eventually I decided to change jobs when I discovered
that the magazine distribution numbers were wildly lower than what I was
quoting to my clients. My company was lying to the advertisers. I took a short
term gig as a cold caller at a financial advisor firm, working for my father-
in-law's team. I ended up staying there for 3 years, passing the 7 and
learning that I have no passion for finance.

While I was at the firm, I attended a lot of networking events and hosted a
few myself. I met many people in the Philadelphia area who were involved in
the tech scene and discovered where my passion really lied. I tried to get a
startup running, but I didn't have the technical chops yet. Eventually, I quit
the financial job, took an all commission job selling credit card machines to
brick&mortar stores, so I could find a job at a startup where I could learn.
Side-note, it's not a great idea to quit your job 1 week before your twins are
born. Even when it all works out in the end, the stress is unbearable.

After 6 months of selling and searching, I ended up working at an online
ticketing company as a salesperson. I worked there for about 3 months, and
became the top salesperson before they laid off the entire sales team, because
it was an experiment that didn't work out. Startups, huh?

I was unemployed, with 3 kids, a mortgage and nowhere to earn. I started
leaning on my contacts pretty heavily. Luckily, the CEO of the ticketing
company wrote us all pretty great references, and reached out to his network
to get us jobs. I ended up as an Analyst at RJMetrics, where I am currently.
I've been here nearly 4 years now, and I've learned a lot being here. I've
been able to build and launch multiple internal technical projects, while
starting the sales organization here.

------
Fiahil
I went to a french private school (Epitech) and just completed my Master's
degree there. I spent three years in Rennes (west of France), one year in
California and one year back in Paris. I interned for 2 startups and worked as
a TA for 2 years while I was studying. I don't recall having failed a course
in those five years.

The biggest low point was when I worked for an advertising startup with no
vision and "buzzfeed projects". Thankfully I no longer have to experience
that.

I'm now interviewing with a few tech companies in Paris and I wish it existed
a "badge" that says "yes, I know all the stuff from CS 101, spare me the
bullshit and go straight to the interesting part" because that's really
annoying.

------
Killswitch
30 years old, I never went to college, actually I almost failed high school. I
wanted to go to college to become a chef, but my fun activity on the side
started making money, so I pursued that instead (more because Le Cordon Bleu
took 3 years to respond to my request information)

I bounced around doing web development and running my own sites for the first
10 years of my career. Then I joined a startup in Chicago, and with the
fallout of working there, I went on a 4 month hiatus of doing only whatever I
wanted for myself, before being hired by where I work now, building a startup.

edit:// actually I don't consider what I am building now a startup. I don't
like the stigmata associated to the term startup. I'm building a company.

------
pjc50
Mid-30s, got my current (and previous) job through recruitment agencies. They
are _mostly_ awful so you have to have a good reccomendation and/or be
prepared to fire them for poor performance.

CS degree from Cambridge, which definitely opens doors. Many of the places
I've worked would simply reject candidates without degrees as a first cut
filter, unfortunately.

Job exits: quit when fed up, made redundant, quit after takeover, reluctantly
quit to move city.

Low point was probably a few years of chronic fatigue.

Salary comparison tip: try converting to house-rooms-per year (or m^2 if
that's available). This makes London and SF look very different.

I once considered moving to the US, and decided against it as it would have
meant abandoning all my friends and family.

------
will_be_ironman
22 years old, Did a startup in college, it failed, took the learnings from the
failure (coding skills mostly) and applied for a job at a large e-commerce
company that had just IPO'd. I've now been a software engineer there, for a
little over a year

------
ryandrake
"A" student in high school, "B" student in university, sent 100s of resumes
and got one offer (programming), moved there to work, changed jobs to a tech
start-up, DotCom Bubble 1.0 burst, unemployed for several months (low point
#1), contracted a bit to get on my feet, went full-time with a client, left to
get MBA, graduated MBA the same year the banks all exploded, unemployed for
several months (low point #2), sent 100s of resumes and got one offer (back to
programming), moved there to work, job hopping every couple of years ever
since. Don't know if there is a way out of the rat race, but grateful to be
employed in this environment.

~~~
totalrobe
Talk about bad timing...did you get into real estate in 2006?

~~~
ryandrake
LOL almost! Sometimes I stop and ponder that if I followed the exact same
career path but offset by -4 years (start in tech ~1994, move to banking in
~2004), I'd probably be a multi-millionaire and retired at 40. Luck of the
draw.

I'm certainly not destitute, but I feel my experiences have given me a more
realistic understanding about the role luck plays in your career vs. hard work
--certainly more than the average 20-something today who has never experienced
a single career-crippling downturn let alone two.

~~~
totalrobe
Luck is the #1 factor in success. Everyone, even super hard working special
snowflakes are a product of:

\- genetics (overwhelmingly influences intelligence and self-control)

\- family influences

\- friends

\- location

\- education

\- wealth

\- social and political environment

\- micro and macro economic picture

\- random interactions

\- the list goes on...

------
scottndecker
Went to Dartmouth College, double majored in Mechanical Engineering and
Economics, wrote my Masters thesis on mechanisms for creating uniformally
distributed bi-disperse emulsions, was a mechanical engineer for a year, then
applied for a job at a software company after realizing that's really my
passion (friend of a friend worked there). Worked for them for almost 3 years.
Now I've moved to Denver, started my own consultancy and my previous employer
has hired me back as a remote contractor. I'm also working in the evenings on
my own startup and hoping to launch a beta group in the next 6 months to a
year.

~~~
arsalanb
Did you ever really fare well in Mechanical Engineering?

~~~
scottndecker
I did. I was one of the youngest people in the company (250+ person company)
and worked in the R&D department. There were several rounds of layoffs in the
year I worked there and I survived them all and was given a raise.

I simply found ME to be too slow on multiple dimensions.

~~~
hanniabu
I feel you. I had the same experience working as an ME in R&D and left for
programming. What languages did you end up learning? What was your first?

~~~
scottndecker
I learned a little C in college, then taught myself Java in the evenings while
working as a ME, then got the job and learned the C# .NET stack, and now my
latest client is back to Java. I'm missing .NET terribly but luckily my
startup uses it so I still get to stay up on it.

------
lshemesh
Just turned 33. Was a terrible High School student and a less than stellar
college student. I have always been into computers minus a brief stint as a
wannabee rockstar. Moved to NYC after a couple of software development jobs in
Boston. Got a job for a startup as a Rails developer. Did some freelance.
Joined another startup and moved into a Wework coworking building. Then more
freelance. Met a guy with this crazy idea to start a company that allowed
users to play the lottery on their phones. Became CTO of Jackpocket. It has
been an interesting journey.

------
weee_username
How did you get your current job or startup?

I applied for it, and passed the interview.

Did you go to college?

Yes

Dropout?

No

If your did go to college, have you ever failed a course?

Only in middle school.

Did you have to move to a different country?

No

How did you manage that and what was (in general) the biggest obstacle/low-
point of your journey so far?

When I was fired from a previous job because of a clerical error on my part. I
was three months into it, had just bought a new car and was getting married in
a few months. Turns out it was the best thing to ever happen to me career wise
as it allowed me to focus 100% on programming, leading to a career change and
ultimately my current job after a few years in a big consulting corp.

------
cozykozy
30yo. Grew up on a small farm in rural Illinois. Studied Physics / Math at a
no-name liberal arts school in the Midwest. Got a job as a programmer out of
school working for Sears Portrait Studio (no lie). Wrote a piece of OSS
software over Thanksgiving break 2012 that front-paged on HN. Major tech co
reached out the following week. Got the job, moved to SF, etc. I now work for
a fairly well-known startup, living 'the dream.' Incredibly thankful for the
opportunities that I've had.

------
nfriedly
My current job (and previous one, for that matter) both started with the
company emailing me out of the blue with a fairly compelling offer that got
even better after we talked a bit. But, they found me because I freelanced my
way through college and built up a fairly impressive portfolio + have a ton of
open source stuff on github. (It also helps that I decided to focus on
JavaScript & front-end dev just before it exploded in popularity.)

------
eitally
BA: history & religious studies from top 25 school.

First career: got in the door (F250 high-tech) via Manpower and worked my way
up over 14 years (reporting to CIO for last four years).

MEng: industrial engineering ten years after graduating uni.

Current job: used credibility gained from first career and emailed president
of business division. Now running innovation lab at one of the best companies
in the world.

ymmv.

------
ruffrey
limped through high school (except math!). majored in psychology/neuroscience
and philosophy. had no idea what i wanted as a career. knew i liked learning
about stuff. did neuroscience internships, community mental health
internships. thought i wanted to be a therapist. got a masters degree for
that. taught myself programming to solve problems with progress notes and
practice management in mental health. liked that more than doing mental
health. swindled an internship in computer science as a data miner. talked to
the right people to get a position as an entry web developer. did that and
moved up 2 positions inside same company. did a lot of side projects and open
source projects for fun, to build my resume and learn. left to be a consultant
at a cut-throat startup building company. now i work at a startup inside a
bigger company doing node.js backend + angular/react.

------
philippnagel
Somewhat old fashioned.

I'm in my third semester of university (Philosophy and CS) and I applied for a
job in customer support over their website with CV and cover letter.

Since my technical skills are quite solid I actually got hired as a support
engineer and it has been a pretty good decision so far.

------
Apreche
Applied on Craigslist.

~~~
wilwade
I also found my startup job on Craigslist. I was looking for other interviews
in the area after I found one.

------
mbesto
Network. Everything is networking. Meet people (in person) and meet more and
more people and keep active on those relationships.

------
bholdr
Feels like a Quora question to me :)

~~~
arsalanb
Posted with the intention of a focused discussion that's relevant to hackers.

------
arafalov
My current status: About to drop a very well paying job to move countries
(back to Australia) to become a consultant specializing in training,
onboarding and POCs in Search Engine industry (primarily Solr and
Elasticsearch). I am at the age of being "The Answer to the Ultimate Question
of Life, the Universe, and Everything" (so, it is a good year to try to
fulfill that destiny....)

Longer story:

\- School in Soviet Union. Good student. Got some exposure to computers
(Yamaha TRS!!!) and learned Basic, Assembler, game decompiling/modification,
and bunch of other self-driven IT interests.

\- Moved countries (to Australia), Computer Science degree in a new language
in a new country. Did ok, helped that I was a full-geek back in Soviet Union
already.

\- Have been playing with Solr for many years on and off. Have recently found
random unfinished projects going back to Solr 1.4

\- Worked in a bunch of IT companies, mostly doing backend stuff with focus on
Java
[https://twitter.com/arafalov/status/664874979775922176](https://twitter.com/arafalov/status/664874979775922176)

\- When the bubble burst, nearly accidentally, got hired to be a 3-rd tier
technical support for BEA products (Weblogic, etc). Supported huge customers
with multiple versions of multiple multi-million line Java products. Lost a
lot of my hair, but gained troubleshooting skills normal developers do not
have (e.g. Our bank is experiencing double transactions. Please solve in 3
minutes without seeing the live system. Ping me for the answer.....). Also
learned to actually understand and guide semi-technical people in asking
complicated technical questions. Learned to answer those questions. Learned to
emphasize with their problems and translate them into possible technical
solution. Turns out this was the BEST ever job for my career, even taking into
account lost hair and probably a couple of years of my life expectancy.
Presented at JavaONE twice based on the experience to an extremely interested
audiences (400-600 people with 4+ overall reviews). Also, published in a
couple of magazines (for free). Also, blogged, anonymously, then under my own
name. Still do.
[http://blog.outerthoughts.com/](http://blog.outerthoughts.com/)

\- Went off to do something completely different for a well-paid but highly-
bureaucratic company (this is my views, not representing my company, etc).
Moved countries a couple more times. Used my troubleshooting skills to build
small projects for real non-IT audiences (e.g. translators). Discovered that
outside of IT-heavy fields, a little bit of IT skills can go a very LONG way
and makes people really happy. But it does require the full-stack skills of
hearing the customer needs, converting them into IT issues, building the
solution, and training the users in understanding them.

\- At some point, got a project at work with Solr 3.x, started doing that and
asking (and answering) questions on the Solr Users mailing list. Must have
been pretty visible as I got contacted by Packt and asked to write an
introductory book on Solr. Loved the idea (had a similar one myself) and
jumped into it with two feet. Produced something nobody else in the market did
(actually had to fight with Packt to let me), which proved very successful.
The book still sells some copies despite being for Solr 3.x and quite out of
date (don't buy it!).

\- Writing the book and getting ever deeper into Solr community, realized that
helping newbies in any systematic way (beyond mailing list) is a niche that is
not served well. More than that, it was something I was enjoying doing as it
allowed me to build various (open source) projects but around the same core
technology/focus area. Created a resources site for Solr ([http://www.solr-
start.com/](http://www.solr-start.com/)) which - behind the scenes - uses
quite a large number of different projects and technologies, satisfying my
itches and still with each project being useful immediately. The site is quite
popular as it is the only place that lists and cross-references all available
components of several types. Also, started a mailing list to track new Solr
projects/articles/etc, my own and from others.

\- Realized - by constantly thinking about Solr (and by then Elasticsearch) -
that there is at least 20 times more absolutely exciting things I could be
doing around the search engines and helping real people. And that I would
never be able to achieve that in evenings and weekends. And that I could be
doing most of that kind of work from anywhere in the world. And that there is
demand for this kind of popularization/education/info-product material. Proven
by two already ongoing projects for a large publisher, which we are both
extremely excited about. And by presenting to Lucene/Solr Revolution twice to
full rooms (slides/videos are online:
[http://www.slideshare.net/arafalov](http://www.slideshare.net/arafalov), one
with 30K views )

\- Decided to return back to Australia (where parents are) and see if I can
help people to integrate search into their stacks from there. Early
discussions with potential partners, customers and users proved very positive.
The biggest challenge is figuring out what will be the best win/win/win
combination (users' benefits/my income/cool projects). Looking forward to
discovering the answer to that.

Oh, and if your team needs Solr training in Q1/Q2 of 2016, I still offer
_first customer_ rates and (business-) lifetime benefits.

------
piptastic
35 years old. Started out in Florida in the honors program at my state college
on full+ scholarship, got a mix of Bs and Ds the first semester, went downhill
from there. Mine was mostly a motivational problem though, I hated that you
had to go to classes you weren't very interested in to graduate... so I just
didn't go to those classes. Unfortunately they are required to graduate, and
at some point they dismissed me. After that I got an AA at a community college
with fairly high grades, and went back to my original college. I eventually
withdrew from school to prevent being kicked out for academic reasons so I
could have a shot at coming back at some point in the future.

During college, I was also working full time at a local police station.
Started out in the records section, then moved to the forensics section
helping with their computer stuff. Eventually I became a forensics technician
with a specialty in computer forensics (at this point I was done with school).
This was probably the job with my highest job satisfaction, I felt like I was
contributing and making a difference. CSI was very big at this time, and even
though people mostly dislike police.. they like the civilian forensic
technician who is trying to help them. Unfortunately it paid pretty poorly
(~36k), and so I took a job as a full-time computer forensics (no field work)
at a sheriff's office about 8 hours away for almost double the pay (55k). I
worked for a child pornography task force, and at first I thought I could
handle it... but it got pretty depressing sometimes and I ended up dreading
going into work. Luckily(??) I ended up getting divorced around this time and
couldn't afford to live alone so I quit and moved back in with my parents at
27 years old.

At this point I realized I needed to do something else altogether, and I had
always liked programming. I had enjoyed writing a few scripts to parse files
out of unallocated space and also some report-writing software while I was
working in Forensics. So I got a job as a programmer working for the state
(~36k). It was pretty boring... I still liked the programming part but we were
doing nothing but maintenance and the actual work was not that often. So after
a year there I started looking at jobs in California. I found a job on
craigslist in San Diego and did a webcam interview, flew there with two
suitcases and started working in early 2008 (55k). 55k in California wasn't
very much though, I was riding the train/bus to work for a long time (1hr+
commute). Eventually I started doing freelance work in addition to my main
job. Once that happened I was able to ship my car out, fix it, and trade it
in.

In late 2010 I got a job at Sony (~80k) and stayed there until early this
year. Consequently I broke the six figure mark early this year (34yoa at the
time), although I was close by the time i left Sony (over if you count
bonuses). I could probably make in the 150-200k range now I if I hunted around
for a while, but I like my job (almost full control over technical stuff) and
while more money is good it's not my primary focus anymore.

Anyway, that's my life story. I'm not sure exactly what anyone can glean from
this.. I still have problems with motivation. I want to start a startup but
can't seem to trust my own ideas enough to steadily work on them.

Also on the college front.. I've thought about going back to finish (just to
get it done), but I don't see the point anymore. I don't think I had the right
mind-set going into college, I was pretty poor socially and I didn't drink
back then... all bad things to enjoy college properly.

------
quaunaut
27\. After High School, I screwed up about as bad as I could. I already wasn't
doing particularly well in school, then I went to Seattle to attend a
community college, with hopes of transferring to a more ideal school
afterward.

But, as always, I wasn't at all comfortable with school. I hated learning at
someone else's pace, by someone else's rubric. I hated never building on
yesterday's learning, using what I'd discovered moving forward, but instead
having just as much reason to throw it away as I did the remnants of that
day's meal.

So, I failed hard, and my parents stopped giving me cash to survive. I ended
up moving back home, and struggled with finding a job in the ruinous
California Central Valley economy, which before the recession was already
alarmingly high, and as we trended into it, would turn into a complete
disaster, regularly fluctuating between 15-18% officially, with the unofficial
at times being as high as 25%.

Years later, at 24, I'd get an opportunity through a friend I'd met online
playing a game together. As she was off at college, her family would let me
stay with them in Claremore, OK, where finding work would be much easier, and
I could at least begin to build a life. Within two weeks of being there I had
work(which took months to get in Fresno and would often see the company shut
down weeks later) delivering auto parts.

Without the influence of my family there to discourage me("You need a degree
to do that!"), I returned to programming in my evenings, where one day I would
ask just the right person online a question about the Django web framework.
They presented the idea of me becoming a junior developer, and from there I
was granted the opportunity.

I was paid horribly, but it really was an opportunity. I had no degree, no
open source, no experience, nothing. But over 11 months I built a resume to be
proud of, and was able to successfully turn that into a high paying job at
UnitedHealth Group.

However, neither at UHG or the following startup I worked for, Doximity, did I
really find a culture I felt I could grow in. I need to focus on my work, try
new things, feel like I have the freedom to make more user-facing decisions. I
put time into personal projects, further developing the Ruby skills I'd begun
at UHG, as well as becoming a competent Javascript developer, and figured out
a whole host of automation problems through a variety of Docker, VirtualBox,
and Vagrant.

Eventually, one of those would get me my current position at A10 Networks, and
it's easily the best job I've ever had. The culture is amazing, the quality of
work is superb, the people are kind yet passionate- it feels like a dream job.

If there's anything I'd want to say to anyone in a low point right now, it'd
be "Stop listening to anyone who tells you that you can't do it." You can.
Maybe you'll have to change tools or tactics, maybe it's a question of time.
But never let yourself rest if you're not enjoying what you're going through,
and never tell yourself that the horrible circumstance you're in now is what
you must endure for years to come.

It isn't. You've just got to figure out the way forward.

------
frank-weindel
Got a bachelors degree in CS from a university with a comprehensive co-op
program. It was 5 years with three 6-month co-op opportunities. First worked
in the law school's IT dept, then as a PHP dev for a local newspaper portal,
and finally a defense contractor. Learned I wanted to distance myself from IT,
and never to work for a defense contractor (they work everyone to the bone
trying to bid as low as possible on contracts. The place I worked at, at
least, was just depressing). The co-ops set me up with a nice resume after
graduating but in the process got in a load of debt which would be REALLY nice
not to have.

First real job was working for a company called Unisys, working on an
antiquated mainframe operating system. The people we're really cool and
supportive though there weren't too many young people around. They gave me
many opportunities to try new things and sent me to some conferences. Problem
was they paid horribly, as I found out, especially for all the proprietary
unportable technology that I had to learn. I was writing applications via a
homegrown text editor, in a homegrown terminal application, using homegrown
compilers. All in ALGOL and various proprietary flavors of it. Thankfully they
let me work on some ideas I had for applications to modernize things (writing
in PHP and C#) but ultimately the low pay and lack of any bright future for
the technology started getting to me (I was there for just under 3 years). Not
to mention a 1 hour train commute each way (from downtown Philadelphia into
the suburbs).

I started answering calls from recruiters and researching companies downtown.
A recruiter told me about this place called OneTwoSee which does sport stat
visualization/game trackers etc entirely using modern web technologies and
node on the backend. The place was just a block away from my apartment. I shot
out that I was looking for about $20k more than I was making at Unisys and the
recruiter thought it was certainly reasonable. I wasn't a javascript expert at
all, but I had been working an HTML5 app for fun to learn. I almost got turned
away by the company after they saw a lack of modern web stuff on my resume. I
e-mailed them back explaining what I had been up to in my spare time and they
decided to give me a shot for an interview after all. Had two interviews, one
was an intro and the other was more technical testing core javascript skills.
Lo and behold I got the gig and have been working here for a year and a half.
Great people (small team), great environment, great technology, great commute,
great pay, great incentives (bonuses), great opportunity to grow. Couldn't ask
for more.

If I hadn't been adamant about my skills and my personal project in the very
beginning I would never have even gotten an interview. So don't be afraid to
speak up! Find something you're really passionate about and develop it in your
spare time. Don't be afraid to show it off at an interview.

Another tip: When talking to a recruiter, don't feel you need to expose your
current salary to them. Just tell them how much you are looking for. I was
pressured very much by the recruiter to expose that information. I did not
want to set any baseline for them to consider other than what I thought I was
worth. The pressure was high, to the point where she threatened I would not
get the job unless I told her. Having a talk with my interviewer directly
about it I was reassured that this would not be a problem and that they didn't
like working with recruiters for reasons like this.

With a little effort, persistence and a lot of passion, you can do anything.

------
bdz
When did HN turn into reddit? Not just this post but recently a lot

~~~
arsalanb
Posted with the intention of a focused discussion that's relevant to hackers.

BTW, I read your "about" section. Looks like you might genuinely benefit from
this discussion :)

