[JR1427]

I did a cell biology post-doc for a couple of years, and then got a junior job working on data visualisation libraries, which I really enjoy. After two years my salary has doubled.

I had no experience of large projects, either. I followed the advice of someone in the industry, and made my CV more or less just about my hobby programming projects. Nobody cared that I hadn't contributed to open source projects, and they certainly didn't care about my previous career.

The tricky part was getting through the first phone screen. HR people didn't really understand the experience I had.