🚀 First JobSoftware Engineer / Engineering Manager1 min read

Self-Taught at 13, First Job at CollegeHumor, Now an Engineering Leader

A self-taught developer traces his path from learning Visual Basic at 13 to building ASP websites for local businesses at 17, then landing his first professional role at CollegeHumor after college. He eventually moved into engineering management at startups, having never finished a CS degree. The post reflects honestly on what he wishes he had done differently and what actually mattered.

Key takeaways

  • →Do it because you love it — passion and curiosity separate great engineers from average ones
  • →Learn CS fundamentals even if you are self-taught; the gaps will cost you years later
  • →Understand how you create value for the business, not just how to write clean code
  • →Learn to speak both to engineers and to business people so you can bridge the two sides
  • →If you work at a startup, actually understand your stock options and how they fit into your comp

I started teaching myself Visual Basic when I was 13. This was the AOL era, and hackers were building 'progz' that added features to the platform. I wanted to know how they did it. My dad took me to CompUSA, and I left with an install CD and a Learn VB in 24 Hours book. I spent a good chunk of my childhood from there learning different languages, platforms, and frameworks.

Around 17, I was building ASP classic websites for local businesses — that was the first money I made from code.

In college I started as a CS major, but the curriculum hadn't caught up to the web yet and I wasn't interested in what they were teaching. I transferred to the business program. In hindsight, I wish I had stuck with CS. It took me years of self-study to build the fundamentals I think every engineer needs.

After graduating, I wanted to be a product manager — but nobody would hire me for that. They kept pushing me toward software development. I decided if I was going to write software for a living, I wanted to do it somewhere fun. My first job was at CollegeHumor as a software engineer. We worked hard and had a lot of fun. It was the perfect transition from college to the real world.

Early in my career I got a chance to move into management and have mostly stayed there since. I've joined companies as the first engineering hire, built things from scratch, assembled teams, and handed them off. I've also joined mid-stage startups and helped grow the team and the tech. I still code outside the critical path and try to keep my skills sharp.

Adapted from a public post by agotterer on Hacker News. Read the original →

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