[olowe]

I was lost, literally, hitchhiking across the Australian outback when this article was published. Going home felt scary because I was afraid to be alone with no one else sharing my interests. Travelling made life enjoyable again because just surviving felt like an achievement. But I felt so, so isolated (again, literally!) from modern society. I wanted to find out why I was so deeply interested in computers but not in “tech”. They must work somehow… why did my iPhone (sold that) feel similar to my PC (sold that too) but only one is called a computer? This article framed things in a way that shook me out of a physically dangerous, homeless, jobless rut. It was all code. And I could learn it if I had the time.

Perhaps it was the way it was written; I couldn’t believe intrigue and passion of computing could be weaved together like this. But there it was.

I did make it home eventually. Fortunately the first 2000km lift back from western Australia to the eastern states with a crystal meth addict on the run from the police didn’t end violently. A few weeks back in Sydney with family some Linux nerds found me working as a receptionist answering phones and scanning paper records in at a failing medical practice. They got me doing desktop Windows and Linux server support. I’m an official software engineer now. I guess I should print this article out to show to my kids!

[adityaathalye]

This story is "best comments" material. It would be even if it were a fabulist tale. Thanks for sharing!

[olowe]

Haha thanks for saying that. It’s real! It’s relatively easy to get into the middle of nowhere in Australia after all ;) Actually still haven’t published my journal scribblings on my blog 10 years on..

[bossyTeacher]

>some Linux nerds found me working as a receptionist answering phones and scanning paper records in at a failing medical practice. They got me doing desktop Windows and Linux server support. I’m an official software engineer now

There is a gap between receptionist and official software engineer. Please, give us more details about your journey and what happened in between

[wavemode]

> There is a gap between receptionist and official software engineer.

At many companies (especially old, stodgy companies) this gap is artificial. The day you get asked "hey, I've got some data .... and I need ..." and you successfully solve the person's problem, is the day you become the office's live-in software engineer. That person you helped will be back, and they will bring friends.

The rest after that is just job title shuffling.

[afavour]

Particularly those of us who don't have computer science training kind of end up falling into this stuff.

One of my first jobs was as an admin assistant at a utilities company. We logged data about pipe replacement, which was done in something like five different spreadsheets, each optimized for its printed form (legal requirements for paper copies of various things). I knew just about enough about Access to know that entering the same thing in 5 different spreadsheets is a waste of everyone's time so set up a database where people entered the information once and Access forms generated the five printable versions. Management were impressed and asked me what else I think might be possible. Cue me diving into the world of complex forms, eventually VBA, then once I got frustrated with that, VB.NET via SharpDevelop (they sure as hell weren't paying for Visual Studio), on and on. I was doing software engineering while still keeping the job title of admin assistant.

...then I went and got a real engineering job with a real salary.