Ask HN: How did you find your current job?

Kinda stings to think about it happening that way, but it's work that isn't dread-inducing, so I'll take it :)

I built a video capture system for the Commodore Amiga as a neat side project for that lead to me working on Transputers that formed the heart of a non-linear editing system (no interview)

The Transputers were really fast, so I wrote some neat 3D demos that ran on the Transputer boards in the Amiga & PC => contract work with SGI (no interview)

Wrote a demo for the SGI video capture system to scan a magazine at high resolution => machine vision & robotics that was changing the printing industry (no interview)

Wrote a C compiler for an 8-bit micro so I could learn C => leads to writing a C compiler for a 16-bit micro at a company (no interview)

Created a "smart home dashboard" for a side-project => leads to writing a mobile app to manage a WiFi router => leads to becoming Lead Firmware Engineer on the project (no interview)

I wrote some stuff on the Unity3D forums => game development job offer (no interview)

Ran a number of in-person developer meet-ups over the years => various jobs & offers & contract gigs (no interview)

Got asked by a friend to teach a class on device driver development at USC, video recorded it, he sent it to his friend at Intel => wind up teaching many, many week long, rocket-science level classes on Linux & Android & device driver development & board bring-up at Intel (no interview)

Recorded all of my lectures at Intel, shared them with a friend at Facebook who was trying to get in to device driver development => Which lead to me teaching a couple of classes at Facebook (no interview)

Asked to critique a ReactNative class at Facebook due to my other teaching there => Which lead to me consulting/contracting for Facebook for a few years (no interview)

Video tape my classes at Facebook, which get shared with people at Microsoft & Apple without my knowledge => end up consulting and teaching at both Microsoft & Apple (no interview)

Created a bot for a popular MMORPG coupled with machine vision and some AI techniques => contract job to detect bots in the self-same popular MMORPG (no interview)

I created a C# package and published it that done some fancy stuff with random numbers => company hired me to work on their project that used the library (that was an "interesting" interview)

I wrote some SONY PlayStation developer tools => leads to getting a job at a game development company creating a PSX game (no interview)

Create some tools to theme websites and pull data from a database => accidentally create an adult entertainment empire (no interview)

Document how the Gameboy works, write some developer tools, maintain some developer tools => multiple jobs developing Gameboy games (no interview)

Port MAME to a bunch of consoles, write emulators as side-projects for other consoles => hired to write emulator of their classic consoles for "big console development company" (no interview)

Latest: Posted on HN's "who wants to be hired", initially blew the guy off because it didn't sound interesting, talked to him and found out his company is solving a really difficult problem in the healthcare industry that I am really excited to tackle, two hour chat and an offer.

Footnote: I am reading everyone's stories and they are so positive and wholesome and full of energy!

I was an independent consultant for almost twenty years. About 5 years ago, I started a contract through a friend's company, after reconnecting with him on a different contract the previous year (we'd worked together in the late 90s and early 00s).

That contract was pretty much me bum-in-seat for a client. The primary role of my friend and his co were satisfying the procurement chain (government contract, easier to work within an established SO than to go direct). But he'd check in and we'd chat about how things were.

About two years in, he asked if I had cycles to help on a different contract, so I started some part-time coding and customer engagement management. This went so well that we started talking about changing the nature of our relationship.

Long story short, in mid-2020, I retired my shingle and went to work for his co full time. My title is Director, BD, but given where we are right now, with a hardware network security product and a software integrated risk and compliance product, the former released and generally available, the latter in private beta until September, my actual work varies.

Anyone who has done early stage startup work knows the all hands on deck, whoever has the best skills, approach. Not sustainable long-term, but sometimes the only way to work early on, especially when funding is a mix of his savings and organic revenue.

Today's a great example. First couple of hours were following up on yesterday's customer scrum (how did it go, what comes next, etc.), all internal communications, just enough words, somewhat informal. Next half a day was more formal customer engagement management with another customer, more formal writing, with more care to what was said and unsaid, and to expectations management.

Now I'm in the middle of a brain break before switching gears to coding some performance improvements in the hardware product.

The context switches are the toughest part.