An introductory lesson in BASIC programming on the Apple II sparked the flame when I was eight or nine, and I was enthusiastically self-taught from then on. After I got online in the early '90s, and developed a reputation for helpfulness in certain programming forums, people started offering me contract work - either not knowing or not caring that I was just a teenager. Anybody capable of operating a compiler could get paid to do it back then!

Three semesters into college, not yet having taken any CS classes, this little consulting business had grown so much that I was turning away more work than I had time to accept. Why should I bother finishing a degree, I had to ask, when I already have a career throwing itself at me?

It's worked out fine; I've been writing code for a living ever since. I've worked for a few of the bigcos, but I prefer smaller companies. Some applications work, from time to time, but mostly dev tools, or system software. I like compilers; currently working on a tensor compiler for an ML system.