[gigatexal]

Graduated with a degree in economics and because I liked the subject but didn’t want to go into more school for a PhD or teach and I didn’t attend an elite school (even if I did it wouldn’t have mattered) I didn’t get into the high flying world of high finance.

So returning home after graduation someone told me about a role with the state as a SQL an analyst. I studied SQL for a few days and didn’t get the job but when I reached out to a recruiter who was looking to fill a junior DBA position and asked if I knew SQL I said I did. (Hubris, complete hubris). I barely got the job — my SQL was super weak.

And from there I learned like a sponge and had various jobs from DBA to data warehouse dev to Python developer to SRE and now as a data engineer.

So hubris plus a recruiter plus a junior role with low expectations was my foot in the door.

(Edit: prior to this at 12 j took apart my father’s 486 and put it back together before he got home from work for the day. It was our only computer. And when it worked I fell in love with hardware and computing.)