Background: about 15 years as a hobbyist, mostly as a language and OS junkie, while working a variety of trades and labour jobs. I tried take the computer science aspect seriously.

Early to mid-1990s I started getting work in the field while trying to get a "real" job that matched my background. I never did find that real job, because I was getting too much work helping people and small companies learn about computers and networks, then setting up and managing their systems. In fact, I gained enough of a reputation as a trainer that I actually worked as an instructor for an accredited vocational school for a few years.

Apart from a couple of "drive bys" that I was uniquely qualified for, no real company was ever silly enough to hire me as a programmer. There were, and probably still are, vast numbers of small companies who are badly underserved. That's where I spent my energies. No real programmer would ever think my code made sense, but without me a few small companies would still be using their computer systems as glorified typewriters and filing cabinets. And no real programmer would ever work for what those small companies could afford.

What I'm missing, and now trying to address in my retirement, is a better grasp on the theoretical underpinnings, algorithms, development processes, architecture, and maybe language design. But I can feel the draw back into relapsing as language and OS junkie, so who knows...