[cheapsteak]

Hard to say for sure, I think being in the right places has a lot to do with it, luck too.

My "break" was when I was at the time freelancing for an agency/ production studio (about 3 years ago). All the project managers and other developers I've worked with said really nice things about me to the tech director and the person in charge of staffing projects, and when they had a project that they didn't have a tech lead for, they decided to take a chance on me, even though I'd never really lead a project before, wasn't even sure myself if I could, and I've only worked with them for about 3-4 months at the time.

That first project came dangerously close to flustercluck territory (partially my fault, partially because we were understaffed), but everything actually turned out pretty great. The projects afterwards went much smoother - always delivered on time, usually ahead of schedule without having to crunch, and they liked how I mentored the other devs; so when a a client pulled a project (through no fault of ours, they had some internal restructuring) and I started looking for contracts elsewhere, they offered me a senior developer position instead.

It's a really cool place with amazing people (still hang out with them), atmosphere, and some breathtaking projects. Leaving it was one of the hardest things I've done, but I couldn't say no when a cancer research place asked me to be the architect for their front end projects. The story about how I got that offer is actually even more random. Maybe I'll write a post about it one day :p