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Ask HN: How did you become a software engineer?
11–20 of 83 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you become a software engineer?
#12Very short version. I didn’t go to university. I worked a bunch of odd jobs, then went to flight school. Worked as a pilot, owned a small school myself. I took up coding for fun. I started with Head First PHP. I was always trying to make small apps to make money (never really worked). I made some Wordpress websites for gyms and restaurants. I’d highly recommend that as a way to pad a resume. Just don’t do the hosting yourself.
Decided to learn Python and just read a bunch of books. Got a job at a startup in SF. Did that, then another job, then tried sales, founded a startup (failed) and just got a job as a software engineer at Netflix.
I just like ideas. Software is great because it’s like math in that a lot of it is just pure idea stuff, and you also get to test if you’re right or wrong (say compared to writing prose). Some stuff isn’t proven and that’s cool too. If the job market for aerobatic instructor and software engineer were switched, I’d probably be flying for a living and coding for fun.
I wouldn’t exactly suggest following my path. I’ve been quite lucky. If I could go back in time and spend a week with my young self, I’d make a plan to get a math or CS degree, probably math. I like graphs a lot. I’d also learn how to code on my own.
But I can’t go back in time and that’s fine. Probably for the best.
Re: Ask HN: How did you become a software engineer?
#13By accident really, I wanted to be a sysadmin actually. My uncle was the only successful person in our family, I wanted to be like him. I studied linux, worked my way from helpdesk to pc tech. I was waiting for someone on the systems team at my job to quit so I could apply for their spot but no one left. I had made a reputation for myself by scripting a lot of my work. Like if there was a common issue that I could resolve I'd write a script and then just type in the name of the computer and resolve the issue remotely. One of the devs for the company was aware of my skills and told to apply for his position when he left. That was 12 years ago.
Books and blogs? I paid for my own O'Reiley subscription which gave me unlimited access to the entire library of books they have available.
University? I skipped it. I'm a HS dropout, I have a GED I worked my way up from the bottom of the IT ladder I honestly think its better that way.
First job was with a bank taking helpdesk calls. Work my way up to PC tech. Moved to a university, PC Tech to Jr App Dev. Jr to Mid. Jumped ship to Charter as a Sr.
Re: Ask HN: How did you become a software engineer?
#14I got started because I lived in a town of 400 people and there was nothing to do. My family weren't farmers, yet all my friends were. One day Dad brought a computer home with a 300mhz processor and it was either learn to be entertained by that, or twiddle my thumbs.
The first burst of inspiration that I wanted to do software was neopets.com. The idea of neopoints somehow magically being stored in this thing called a database and shared through a virtual economy created a deep curiosity in me. Enough that the early days of apache, php4, and mysql were enough to slog through as a kid (truly painful back then!).
I didn't get a degree. I went to a day of university and dropped out because they wanted six figures for things I already knew. Financially it was worth it to do that, but I am sad I wasn't able to live the 'college life' my friends did, and didn't make the same connections they did. Freelance life can be lonely unless you put the effort in to network.
My first paid work was SEO and content writing, then when WordPress 1 launched I found gigs making websites with it. I found clients through online forums and then asking those clients if they knew anyone I could do work for. The best gigs came from those referrals. Honestly I'm not sure I could do that in today's atmosphere! Back then there were no freelance websites (like Upwork) or video call systems to verify you weren't a 17 year old kid. Today it's much harder to find gigs among strangers, especially if you're young. My best months I was 19 and making $10k/m without my clients knowing I was so young :)
I'm an engineer today but have dabbled in other roles like UX, design, PM, bizdev. I love the flexibility and the compensation the right engineer role provides. I wouldn't say there is anything I hate about it, life is good!
Re: Ask HN: How did you become a software engineer?
#15I started programming at seven on a ZX Spectrum that I still own. Basically I wanted to make my own games and the only way to do that was to learn to program. I spent a lot of my teenage years making games, mods and websites. All the books that are relevant for that period aren't really anymore except for historical interest. I also got to grow up as the Internet grew up for better or worse.
I went to Uni for four years studying Computer Games Technology. It was great for meeting likeminded people and networking with local companies as well as providing space for making more stuff. Won a few awards for my student work and went off to work for a startup after I graduated. That folded after a few months and I ended up at a local AAA studio. Sixteen years later and I'm still making games. I got that first job with just a casual chat over coffee the day after I was wrestling in jam and am still working with the friends I made at the first big studio!
Right now I'm lead of the Community Engineering team for a web-based game development platform called dot big bang (https://www.dotbigbang.com) so running a small band of multi-talented people making games for the platform, live streaming and that sort of thing. By far one of the most fulfilling jobs I've had as I help out other game developers all day and enjoy a lot of creative freedom.
Re: Ask HN: How did you become a software engineer?
#16My first program was a "choose your own adventure" text game on the TI-83 in middle school.
I majored in mechanical engineering and got an internship writing Bash scripts to test hard drives by virtue of having a great GPA. It was way more fun than any of my MechE classes, so I went to CS classes with some friends who were getting CS minors (I wasn't allowed to actually take the courses because of pre-reqs) and lucked into a SWE job.
Right now I'm about half SRE and half SWE, which I enjoy. I dislike the amount of bureaucracy and the never ending dependency updates - we currently have a great way to alert on security vulnerabilities in dependencies, but no great way to automatically update.
Re: Ask HN: How did you become a software engineer?
#17> How did you first get into programming?
I wanted to know HOW someone could take a bunch of text and turn it into a website. I didn't know if any dragging and dropping of text and boxes was involved, or if it was some other kind of magic. A few years ago I bit the bullet and attended a bootcamp, and got my first job 7 months later. After 2.5 years there, I got my second job.
> What is it about coding that got you hooked?
I love the fact that you can make things out of nothing, and that we're at the forefront of emerging tech.
> What is your experience with university?
I have a two-year Associate's degree and a 4-year Bachelor's degree, both of which are completely unrelated to CS.
> How did you get your first paid work?
Prior to my first job I was approached to make a website for someone's business, but it's like I'd walked into a red flag store. The client didn't really know what they wanted, the pay they offered was minuscule, and most importantly I got the strong sense that the client was going to be incredibly difficult to work with. My first true paid work was through my first job.
> What do you do now?
I'm a software engineer at a medium-sized tech company. The tech stack and best practices are leaps and bounds better than at my first job, but the learning curve is much steeper.
> What do you love/hate about your job?
Like: The pay, the stricter practices (people care about the future), the company's product, and people work pretty normal 9-5 hours.
Dislike: There's a LOT to learn. It's not the fault of the company, though, it's just the reality of the situation.
Re: Ask HN: How did you become a software engineer?
#18I started programming in about 7th grade. A website/game I enjoyed was Neopets. Neopets allowed you to create grounds called guilds which had HTML pages you could customize, so I learned HTML.
Later on I started playing Minecraft. I was interested in running a public server and creating a community, so I learned the basics of system administration (ssh, ftp, bash, linux, website domains, etc.). This was extremely helpful, practical knowledge that gave me many advantages over my peers in school.
In high school my server grew more and more. I learned about virtualization vs bare metal servers. I set up a website and forum using off-the-shelf software (XenForo, Apache, MySQL). I did small front end programming tasks in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. When I needed to learn more I did just that.
Aside from the technical aspects I also learned things like web design, game design, Photoshop, the importance of backups, and managing a community.
At some point I wanted to write my own mods for the server. Java was intimidating, so I used Skript which was a scripting language that could perform actions in the game. This worked for a while, but I quickly outgrew it and sought to learn Java.
I wrote several mods for the game and published a few with success. I learned more and more Java. It was an excellent time where I learned the basics of programming and programming languages. I learned design patterns like Singletons and connection pooling. I learned how to use event based APIs to write handlers, how to use file system apis, how to keep data in memory & persist to disk. I learned how to use git/GitHub to share my work and version it. I kept on running. A server until I entered college as a computer science student. Around my freshman/sophomore year I started to lose interest, so I shut it down.
I college I found classes to be extremely easy, so I didn’t spend much time on them. I spent time on projects and solving problems I had. I wrote many different web apps, created a smart thermostat, and wrote better interfaces for my schools atrocious websites.
I had an internship my freshman summer at a packaging plant. I did data entry and wrote small scripts/programs. My sophomore summer I studied approach. Junior year I applied for an internship at AWS on a whim, and much to my surprise I got and interview and eventually an offer. I interned at AWS that summer and received a full time offer. I worked at AWS after I graduated and stayed for about two years. I started my current job at RStudio yesterday, so I can’t give much info about that yet :)
Re: Ask HN: How did you become a software engineer?
#19I was taking AP classes in highschool for fun just to take as many as possible. That included AP Computer Science.
I felt behind at the beginning so worked extra hard to catch up. The teacher let us work at our own pace and before I knew it I was several chapters ahead of the rest of the class. Then I spent class time writing naive math programs to do stuff like numerically compute integrals. When I discovered BigInteger I was so excited.
I think my future career was determined then but I did not realize it at the time.
Re: Ask HN: How did you become a software engineer?
#20When I was 14 I played MUDs. The MUD I played only allowed one account per user. I made two accounts and got banned. It was that day I decided to learn C and make my own MUD that allowed more than one account per user.