[hipsters_unite]

> Did you learn to program in school or teach yourself?

Taught myself JS, then PHP/HTML/CSS, then graphic design, then back-end stuff (Ruby/Python), some regexes, algos and how to use Linux at a basic level. I'd actually built some stuff as a teenager (websites and mods/tweaks for Homeworld2 in Lua), but I don't count that.

> Did you do unpaid work to establish yourself?

Yeah, quite a lot. Several small sites and a couple of slightly larger ones for my day job at the time - I was working three days a week for a learned society and studying my off days so I did bits for them. A lot of that looks pretty cruddy now, but y'know, that's learning for you.

> Roughly how long did it take you from day 1 of learning to day 1 of being paid?

Started learning in July 2012, got two job offers in June 2013.

> What was your first gig?

Working for a startup making scheduling software. Started as a UX/UI dev doing a bit of the back-end stuff but after re-doing the front end spent a lot of time putting in tests and re-architecting things. It was frantic but good for learning fast. I work for a mature (but still small) company now, which is a nice change.