> Why did you get into the field? What did you focus on at first?
I had stumbled into computers / programming probably 11/12. I've always been interested in things that I "didn't get" or seemed like "magic" and so when gamed were dumping textfiles full of what seemed like cryptic texts to my desktop I started digging in and found out there were crashlogs with stacktraces. Kinda just went from there. The second sentence still holds true today, sadly less and less feels like magic. Never really focused on anything which ended up really hurting me. I hace a lot of surface level knowledge about a ton of both general and niche stuff and have worked with things most people my age probably haven't heard of, but I'm not particularly good at anything as a result.
> What are you doing at your job? Is it everything you dreamed of and more?
Enterprise stuff for a non-tech F500. Not really excited by my careers at this point nor do really care for the industry. I've considered leaving, but the cost is too high. I still sorta enjoy programming though, and have been trying to get back into more the past year after burning out once.
> How did you break that first-job barrier?
Honestly? A lot of mass applying and twisting the wording on some former freelance work I'd done to sound more interesting than it really was. In retrospect I felt hopeless at the time, but it only took about 3 months.
> What were you doing before this?
Nothing really, I was out of highschool kinda stuck in a depressive slump. I had tried a few other things that didn't work out and was working a near-minimum wage job in a shitty area. Eventually I just said fuck it, I have a skill so let me put it to use.
> Any tips for the rest of us?
Hmm, I'm not sure. I guess if you can afford it, try to get your resume done professionally. I did it once and it was much better both visually and content wise than anything I'd been able to cough up myself.
I had stumbled into computers / programming probably 11/12. I've always been interested in things that I "didn't get" or seemed like "magic" and so when gamed were dumping textfiles full of what seemed like cryptic texts to my desktop I started digging in and found out there were crashlogs with stacktraces. Kinda just went from there. The second sentence still holds true today, sadly less and less feels like magic. Never really focused on anything which ended up really hurting me. I hace a lot of surface level knowledge about a ton of both general and niche stuff and have worked with things most people my age probably haven't heard of, but I'm not particularly good at anything as a result.
> What are you doing at your job? Is it everything you dreamed of and more?
Enterprise stuff for a non-tech F500. Not really excited by my careers at this point nor do really care for the industry. I've considered leaving, but the cost is too high. I still sorta enjoy programming though, and have been trying to get back into more the past year after burning out once.
> How did you break that first-job barrier?
Honestly? A lot of mass applying and twisting the wording on some former freelance work I'd done to sound more interesting than it really was. In retrospect I felt hopeless at the time, but it only took about 3 months.
> What were you doing before this?
Nothing really, I was out of highschool kinda stuck in a depressive slump. I had tried a few other things that didn't work out and was working a near-minimum wage job in a shitty area. Eventually I just said fuck it, I have a skill so let me put it to use.
> Any tips for the rest of us?
Hmm, I'm not sure. I guess if you can afford it, try to get your resume done professionally. I did it once and it was much better both visually and content wise than anything I'd been able to cough up myself.