Ask HN: Late-bloomer engineers, when and how did you discover programming?

I was hitting snags trying to do analysis with excel and couldn’t vlookup or pivot on a table with a million rows. A friend mentioned in passing that python would make this pretty simple.

I started there and tried to solve problems I was facing with code instead of excel.

Fast forward a year or two having built a few projects on the side, quit my job and started selling software I built from scratch.

I found having a project to work on that solved problems I faced made the learning effort so much easier. I struggled early on trying to solve fizz buzz-type problems because I couldn’t see them solving problems I faced day to day.

I don’t code much anymore but having that arrow in my quiver changed my career trajectory significantly. I recommend learning as soon as possible!

At 26 I was studying criminal justice, then I had some health issues which would affect the physical aspect of the job, so I switched to CS. I used to think I was stupid because when I tried HTML everything seemed so hard and took long. Then in my CS program, while still dealing with health concerns I did exceptionally well in almost every course, always top of class and I learned that it is easier for me than others.

Before graduation I had job lined up. I am making decent money in non-tech but interviewed in quite a few companies and got offers, they never matched the amount I worked from home though, so I did not make the jump. I also realized I'm a pretty good self-learner and now read books and do online classes non-stop.

I didn't know what I wanted to do when I graduated high school. I just wanted to work. I tried community college but sorry burnt out. I tried business, welding, and IT. I passed a few classes, others I just quit attending. I had no goals or direction and super depressed I couldn't even get a job that made more than $11/hour. I worked probably 15 jobs total in my life by 21. In hindsight looking at it I think this mostly had to do with me wanting to be a priest but people talking me out of it. I struggled with religion ultimately just recanting allowing for myself to rebuild my purpose as a weird way of putting it.

I then got an assiciates degree in business and started working at a bank. From there I worked for a few years building up skills and experience. I got really good with Excel and realized a lot of what I was doing with the functions was very similar to programming. So the logic part and substituting variables was super easy for me to comprehend.

The thing I really appreciate about going back to school now is I know what's what. I know what matters and what doesn't. I had a fully laid out plan and understanding of the way in which I'd achieve my goal. It's so weird that the whole Corona issue didn't even put a dent in how I planned things out. I think it actually helped even get an internship. I'm still very green in terms of skill though. But I enjoy learning it because it's a skill. It's not like hypothetical nonsense they teach you in business classes.

And then in my late 20s I'm stuck with a program tearing through my customer records, overwriting values with empty fields and apparently at random. I was able to pull the script from the created username id that did the overwrites, and ultimately derive the flaw as being a 'match first instance by name' with no other restrictions (including overwrite protections in place for other end users, and ignoring things like same names in different states or intentional duplicates for regulatory or industry purposes).

So something didn't feel right that I was able to unravel what this script did wrong yet not be able to program it. When I found out how much the contractor made to write that sloppy POS, it was a career given.

How many fields can you say you doubled your salary with a job hop, really?