That's a very long story... But here's the essence.

I got a degree totally unrelated to CS. (Think "arts". Decent school. Top 50. But not prestigious.) Bounced around at not-great jobs for awhile, living in NYC and barely making ends meet.

Then I managed to get a job at an online media startup (essentially a management role), which was a very lucky break.

That got me into software, and I was able to use that experience to move into product/project management. I did that for a few years at some boutique companies, working crazy hours but learning a lot.

Then I decided to go back to school and study CS (starting at undergrad level again)... so I spent a few years re-learning everything from the ground up. That includes all the math, stats, etc... that you'd expect from a typical undergrad engineering program. It took awhile to finish, and was frustrating at times, but it was worth it.

Fast forward a few years... and now I work as software engineer. I focused on ML during my studies, and again (with lots of luck) managed to get a job at an R&D lab doing machine learning, during my final year in school.

I've since moved and now work at a company that does low-level OS-type work. (Which I actually enjoy more than ML.)

It's been a wild ride, but it's been fun.

Non-linear paths like this rarely get mentioned, but I met dozens of people with similar stories when I went back to school. It's hard, but can definitely be done.

inspiring story. thank you. i have a technical BA but have done similar hopping around new york etc. since then and have been self-teaching cs trying to figure out a path that will work for me. how did you jump into a management/product? did you read up on those skills or are you a good at selling yourself? how did you make the decision to go back to school? i'm most interested in how you were able to commit to giving up art.