| Career: Finance/Trading Platforms Developer (by accident). I wanted to be a doctor. And I hate math. When I was 7, me and two of my friends signed up for a local free summer course for computer skills and typing for Pioneers (this was in Kiev, Ukraine, in mid-90s). Learning MS-DOS was pretty cool and different. It was also great fun to make infinite-loop batch files that printed out some vulgarities on screen when the instructor wasnt looking.
One day, when walking into a class, an older (maybe 15?) guy in corner of the room (who turned out to be a sys-admin) drew my attention: he had a bunch of weird text on screen in some program I've never seen before (all i knew was "copy con mytext.txt"). Then, at a press of a button, his computer lit up and started drawing colorful circles and making noises. I've just experienced QBasic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QBasic). I was fascinated by what I saw and, with encouragement of the the sysadmin visited couple of sessions of an "advanced programming" class. Although I didn't understand much, I was hooked.
With great support from my parents - who - and i'm still not sure how - found the means to get me a PC at home (those cost many months of salary at the time) - i started tinkering with graphics, windows, and random computer stuff.
Then a "Delphi for Dummies" found it's way to my hands somehow. The rest of it all, leading up to today, is history as they say. For me however, it's a series of completely random, lucky, events that gave me the initial interest and subsequently permitted me to pursue an absolutely fascinating career. Today, i am actively dedicating time to get young engineers interested in technology and show them what amazing possibilities it brings. Maybe one day i'll even write a blog about it :) |