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Love your career intentions, am not a programmer so not a potential client, but curious what "fully funded by our integrated recruiting team" means. Funded by potential employers?

I wanted to get out of clinical/research labs & was going back to school for an art degree in 1995. The ad said: Join the microbrewery craze. Relentlessly repetitive bottling job. Send resume to: PBC, PO Box ****, Seattle, WA. Thus began my 20 year brewing career...

Just vibes and shit

Back in my time if you signed up to become a teacher they’d pay you $150 a week to go to university. My car needed two new tires to get its warrant of fitness and I was broke, so I signed up. Ended up spending 11 years at University but eventually managed to escape.

The best programmers I've met don't particularly like programming. They just abhor drudgery.

I got a computer science degree in '09. I live in Alabama. What little market we had for programmers dried up immediately. I fell into commissioned sales for 9 years, then decided to go do something different and I've been working in the field on networks and (primarily) alarm systems ever since

Video games, oddly enough. Gran Turismo and WWE2K both have customization features that let you upload logos that you made and put them on your cars and wrestlers, respectively. I started making custom graphics, found out I liked it, and it turned into a career.

I flunked out of computer engineering, and my parents insisted that I get a degree in SOMEthing. Mom pointed out that I’m good at math and a good explainer. Then teaching and I just sorta “clicked.”

Manpower sent me there.

None, because I'm disabled and can't work, drive, or live on my own.

Poverty?

Here's a 10k word post with bits of my story weaved into a talk about a Japanese film.

Too insane or incapable to do anything else :D

I started my working life in retail so was eager to escape that too. The only way out was to make money doing what I enjoy.

Elected to IBM academy of technology; IBM side of UK biggest Internet banking, appointed IBM Distinguished Engineer. Never looked back, kept going forward.

Quand Nabil me dit : tiens gros lard, y'a un poste pour toi là, j'envoie mon CV et j'y vais.

As for how I ended up studying electrical engineering in the first place? *Marge Simpson holding a breadboard voice* I just think they’re neat.

The service I got while buying a house here in Valencia was so ridiculously awful I said “I have to be able to do this better” 26 years later, still doing it

I wrote/edited for newspapers in HS & college. Fired as a lowly computer operator at age 26, a few months later got a newsroom job. 18 years on, my paper's corporate chain was downsizing by attrition & couldn't figure out the Internet, so I left to ply my trade 15 more years as a writer in academia.

Disability discrimination with lack of accommodations caused my body to deteriorate quickly and forced me out of the work I loved so much.

in the early 1980’s the high end men’s clothing store i worked at automated their point of sale system and i had an aptitude for correcting inventory errors. i thought studying computers would be a good job for the future. 😂

Got sick of working retail everyday, always wanted to do something in that vein of work and the stars aligned in a weird way so I took it as a sign to try and get my degree.

Fast forward a decade or two, and I am now a licensed professional guardian. I Still look back sometimes and ask myself, "How the hell did that happen?" Apparently you can run, but you can't hide from one's calling.

Which one?

I wanted to learn programming from the small segments on Clarissa Explains it All where she quickly programs games about her day.

One teacher of mine helps me to be blogger with advices for posting and writting

I learned TI Basic to make some tools to do my physics homework for me. I originally went to uni to be a teacher and realized that I could actually get a job doing the thing I’d been doing for fun and I’ve been in software ever since.

I thought i wanted to be a priest for about 20 years before finally applying and being rejected and realizing helping was the career i really wanted, and the social work school's mission statement spoke to me. The mission statement has since been changed because too 'woke.' love what i do.

2020... A day that probably would start with everything,not much since Just drawing etc,after probably 2022 I made my First every Twitter account and from there, MikoriaaxKenshin was born.... A drone of Peace

…program. That was in 1997. I’ve been a winemaker and consultant ever since and I still like going to work on Mondays.

After finishing the post-grad and getting a 'real' job in my field I realised I didn't have 'it' and way preferred software dev, also reading Copeland's JPod helped, so retooled myself to learn c++ and got a job in the city. That was 2006, i was 29, never looked back.

Nobody wanted to pay me for what I wanted to do but they would pay me for shit nobody wants to do.

I wanted to travel.

I tried a bunch of things, art, science, music, none of them I was good at Then I gave automotive mechanics a try and it just clicked.

All I want to do all day is read the news.

Went to school to be a teacher. Tried to make a living in improv. Took a job in parking at Walt Disney World to get my foot in the door and maybe one day audition for Pleasure Island. On my first day, saw the facilitators doing the orientation program and went "Oh. That's what I was meant to do."

Epically bad orthodontics derailed my child actor dreams…pivoted to the thing that got me the second-most praise (visual art).

I had no realistic dreams for the future after I dropped out of college. Not enough money or gritt to make things happen but I needed to step up for my family. It's not what many people would consider a career but I'm content there.

Grew up in a chaotic and sometimes violent household. In turn, I later pursued a career where that was a norm, but I quit because it was unhealthy and because of ethical differences. My life is a lot quieter now.

Engraçado o suficiente, eu entrei em computação só para saber como um computador funciona. E hoje eu sei. A teoria toda. Mas ela não me tira a agonia de instalar peça nova de PC. Ainda bem que eu programo

3 options: dentist - 6 years in uni engineer - 4 years in uni developer - 3 years in uni I choose the shortest education more than 30 years ago.

I went to hear one of my profs give a reading of his poems. They were terrible, and I went back to my dorm thinking, "I can do better than that," so I wrote a poem. I was wrong—I didn't do better, not for a while, anyway—but I was hooked.

Tried to be a mechanic sucked ass at it, tried programming sucked at it, still like computers and stuff. Now trying to make it in IT

"choose"? Fell into working with Oracle databases in 1988 because a mate offered me a job and it paid more (and had more sociable hours) than the bar work I was doing at the time. Still stuck doing the same boring thing 37 years later because I have no other marketable skills.

I'm still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up and thus have found the secret to eternal youth

People choose their career path?

Failing at history

Always been good with kids and caring for them was kinda the only thing I was efficiently good at outside of writing. I still dream of becoming a published author one day but as time goes on it's starting to feel more and more unreachable.

An IT angle? A math paper in 1976 had a Fortran segment. A few years later the school I taught at was given a computer and the principal decided my Fortran was near enough to BASIC - and away I went. 8 bit computing in the 80s was fun.

Got a job at a call center while I got my associates degree in software design, which I hoped to use to break into the game industry. Then a part time IT assistant position opened, and I went for that. By the time I finished my AS, I was a full time sysadmin and decided to stay where I was.

Dropped out of chemistry at A level, dropped out of electronics at uni, neet life for 2 years, worked a series of factory jobs, got into testing rail electronics, then lasers then aerospace, now I work in a research lab developing EVs. I have no real qualifications.

I was good at math so my parents sent me to a summer daycamp to play video games and learn BASIC, they thought I might like that. They were right: forty years later I still like playing video games and software development both, the latter makes money, too.

I got a job working with preteens, assuming I would leave in a few months, but 5 years passed and I want nothing more than to progress in my field to give students a better life. They're frustrating and funny and smart and they reminded me why I started creating in the first place. I love my job.

Though right now I'm pursuing writing as a long-term emotional fulfillment thing because just doing art doesn't satisfy my urge to tell stories.

I was unemployed and I am a societal cripple so I made my only way to stay alive: sold my creativity.

I admittedly got lucky. I wanted to work in games, and my first job out of college was a game tester. Turns out software testing fits my skills and mindset very well, so I've been adding to my skills and confidence for it since.

To give the short of it, I grew up around my dad, worked around cars and computers, i preferred computers. I wanted to protect things so I'm targeting cybersecurity, SOC Analyst. Due to unfortunate and recent happenings, i'm even more motivated to learn.

I applied for a temp job and was able to solve the hiring manager's dll linking problem during the interview. Dll hell gave me a career.

?? We can choose ?!

Imaginative weirdo with a heavy desire to disappoint his stepdad.

Had nothing to do with my degree in US Foreign Policy, of course, but I picked up Spanish and Russian and run storytimes in both.

After seeing all A's in CS courses, which I wasn't TRYING at, and floundering at chem when I was TRYING REALLY HARD, I rushed to the registrar's office to change my major to CS. But as mentioned I forgot to change it to chemistry after orientation. So after an awkward conversation, I skulked away.

Fall semester of freshman year I needed an intro science course to fill a distribution requirement, preferably one at 10:00-11:00 on MWF so I wouldn't have to go to class in the afternoons. Took intro geology, got the worst grade of my four years in college, became a geologist anyway.

I needed a way to support myself so with no prior work experience, I went to an accelerated ADN program and became an RN. I want to do animation or illustration, but creative avenues didn't (and still don't) seem realistic to survive in the US... :(

I had a teacher in high school help me get my first kitchen job. Then after getting laid off I stumbled into an advertising job. Now after being laid off again I am still wondering what I am going to trip and fall into next. I have never thought I want to be "this thing" when I grow up.

Attention needs and low care of persona + stable law morals

You'd think I'd take a hint when I kept getting accused of plagiarism in 5/6th grade because they couldn't believe the writing was actually mine. Nope, it took until college for me to realize it.

Was working nights cleaning a restaurant kitchen while in grad school. A college teammate of mine mentioned that a local hs needed a coach, was I interested? Seemed more fun than hosing down the kitchen floor so I took it, loved it, became a teacher to continue doing it. Still do.

I'm disabled & can only work part time so I needed something that pays well for only 2-3 days work with little public interaction & maybe even work from home. The short TAFE course was free so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Halfway through my comp sci degree I found that coding wasn’t for me. I stuck it out and went the route of server and systems administration instead. Been there over a decade now.

My family had recently moved to Texas, and the climate was so much hotter that I ruled out all careers where I’d have to wear pantyhose.

My 9th grade English teacher told me Art wasn't a real job, and I was like "Pfft. We'll see about that." Been flailing desperately ever since.

Retired clinical psych. Nobody famous, just a workaday therapist & part-time college instructor. My family was weird. Not the worst, but worse than average. I wanted to know WTF, you know? So I started reading psychological and psychiatric literature... in middle school, mind... and I was hooked.

I saw Fantasia in the early 70s and I knew I had to animate dinosaurs. That led to a life long passion for animation and comic books.

I heard the voice acting in Chaos Wars and went "bitch if these people can be voice actors, then I can be one, too". And now i'm a voice actor of sorts.

I dunno but that chair is gonna slip and you're gonna hurt yourself real bad 😭

I landed a change contract management position in a sub-tier aeronautical manufacturing company, when the program manager quit 6 months later they offered me the job because I had a good customer relationship, and to this day.

Industry kept lighting itself on fire over and over again whenever I tried to get a career started, ended up making T-shirts.

Took a temp job out of college. They decided to “computerize” it with a badly coded dBase III app. I got tired of fighting it, stayed late and made it 10x faster and better, and I was suddenly the computer guy. At a Fortune 50 company’s Treasury department.

A video game sequel to the movie Tron led me into internet culture which led to my interest in computer science

How would I publish my independent study on Wind Instrumental Ensembles in Italy from 1420 to 1650? Well, what about this new thing the World Wide Web? #1997

I wanted to be just like my dad, only to find that that didn’t mean all that much to him. Oh well, I like what I do!

I turned my brain off and somehow ended up drawing titties and making forklifts

Graffiti > typography > graphic design > web development 😌

I've loved computers since I was a kid. I didn't think I was smart enough for programming because I was awful at math, so I went into IT. Had a break down. Went into game dev. Laid off in January and have not been able to find employment since. T.T

A combination of- -Privilege: white dude -Luck: being at the right place at the right time -Misspent youth: too much time drawing and consuming TV was the training I needed.

I don’t even know what career path I want or should do 😭

Mushrooms are delicious

Also. Spite. Lots of spite.

1984, a 10YO fascinated by video games, having saved up just enough money to buy a 2nd hand Atari 2600. Being frugal, I instead bought a slightly cheaper ZX81. When I plugged it in, to my disappointment, no games, only a BASIC prompt. I opened the manual …

C'est la vie.

And after a while, I realized that: "Hey, I already have a job. Don't stress over getting into the workforce if I don't need it." Haven't looked back.

I decided not to go through the humiliation ritual of a PhD (only to not get a job as history PhD are over saturated) and got my MLIS instead lol. Being a librarian is fun, even if the pay is awful. 🤣

Needed money and apparently can do what I'm paid to do hourly well enough to be well paid. Now, when it comes to that thing that sometimes nets money (writing), well, I've been doing it forever and it's a fun outlet and sometimes I get paid. Seems a win-win.

I walked in an IT apprenticeship after nearly throwing up as a student nurse. Then, 6 months in, a senior asked me if I wanted to help him configure firewalls. I am now a senior cyber incident responder.

I'll give the one for my day job. I grew up thinking I hated kids. Then I got a nephew. And wound up tutoring to help a friend. Turns out... I love kids. They're hilarious and give me hope. And given I was already a nature lover, shifting to nature education was an easy pick.

Fast forward to today, I'm teaching game dev full time to about 150ish students a year and doing a pair of GDC roundtables for other k12 game dev teachers in March. My former students have been working AAA, indies, a bunch of them even made a studio and released a game on steam.

Other way round - my career path chose me. If you had asked me at any stage "what will you be doing in 5 years", not only would my guess have been completely wrong, but if you had magically known and TOLD ME, I would have said you needed to ease off the psychedelics.

I wanted to be a writer but that was not going to happen for me financially. I was undecided in college, so I majored in general science. I googled "highest paying jobs out of college" and switched my major to software engineering. My goal was to not have to worry about money anymore. I succeeded.

When I was in college for engineering they made us go to a presentation by each of the engineering diciplines. Mine opened with “We get to break things” and immediately broke something. I figured being able to break things was worth the cost of linear algebra.

no career here but wanna say that seeing everyone's responses has given me at least some hope for the future xp

I was planning on getting a PhD, saw friends going through that process and noped out to work in marketing. Eventually wanted to get back to the sciences so I did a training program in medical imaging, got a job in the field for 5 years, then became the director for the program that graduated me!

But not before learning about Computer Aided Design, though didn't know it was an actual job. An unemployed and homeless man found solace with family members who informed him about Technical Design. Went back to school and found the job he was always supposed to do.

This is roughly the thought process

@alt-text.bsky.social