When I was about to graduate high school, I knew one thing: I couldn't be an adult and live with my folks (who are wonderful), or depend on them, period. Just the way I'm wired, I guess. I knew HTML and CSS really well (this was when A List Apart was huge), but that was about it. I had no right to a web designer/frontend developer job, let alone a leading one.
But there I was in Fairfax at my first real interview just a handful of days before graduation, nervous as hell. The business was document management and tax preparation web applications. My portfolio consisted of a single website I created to accompany my resume a week before this interview, with some made-up content about Herndon, deployed to a free webhost. I talked a good game about <table>-less CSS-driven layouts, accessibility, all the stuff his departing designer had been pushing for (thanks again, ALA).
The guy thought I was sharp and took a chance on me. He offered a small salary that seemed like a pot of gold to 18-year old me, and it was enough to be able to get my own place, not even with roommates. I was ecstatic, and I'll never forget the excitement of that summer.
In the rare event that you read Hacker News, thanks Arnold :^) ... Who knows where I'd be today if you hadn't taken that risk.
Similar story here. I spent a year out of college unemployed, listlessly sending out job applications in an awful market and stewing in depression. When I finally got a break it was at a company full of old-hand COBOL and RPG-IV programmers... and they wanted to hire me to lead a huge web-based modernization effort! Me, a scraggly-looking kid, decades younger than the rest of the team, with no real evidence of my talents or experience. And likewise the pay was a pittance compared to what the programmers in SV were allegedly making. But the degree of freedom to do basically whatever I wanted, however I wanted, more than made up for it. To this day they're delighted with the work that I produce, and it's done absolute wonders for my self-confidence. And even though I could strike out for greener pastures at this point, the fact that they took such a chance on me is the reason that I stick by them.
But there I was in Fairfax at my first real interview just a handful of days before graduation, nervous as hell. The business was document management and tax preparation web applications. My portfolio consisted of a single website I created to accompany my resume a week before this interview, with some made-up content about Herndon, deployed to a free webhost. I talked a good game about <table>-less CSS-driven layouts, accessibility, all the stuff his departing designer had been pushing for (thanks again, ALA).
The guy thought I was sharp and took a chance on me. He offered a small salary that seemed like a pot of gold to 18-year old me, and it was enough to be able to get my own place, not even with roommates. I was ecstatic, and I'll never forget the excitement of that summer.
In the rare event that you read Hacker News, thanks Arnold :^) ... Who knows where I'd be today if you hadn't taken that risk.