I wrote my first computer program when I was 8 years old.

Then some time before I graduated high school I came to realize the sheer complexity of most interesting computer programs. And I became discouraged. I decided computer programming wasn’t for me. I started to focus on networking and server management, systems administration… things we often mislabel as “DevOps” these days, when we really mean just “Ops”.

Then I got a job in 2006 or so, managing a small cluster of servers.

Shortly thereafter, the developer on the same project quit.

So I stepped in to fill the gap with some urgent bug fixes while a replacement was found.

The replacement never came.

Or more accurately, I realized once again that I loved programming, and it didn’t feel quite so intimidating to work on one bug/feature at a time. So I became the replacement. And I’ve been loving it ever since.

This true story is inspired by a recent conversation I had with one of my mentees, who’s struggling with some self doubt about whether or not to make a career change into development. Could you use a mentor? [/contact](Let’s talk).