How I got into IT

I've decided to share a brief story of how I got into IT. My hope is that this may inspire someone to take the plunge and enter a fascinating world where you're bound only by your imagination. If it proves popular, I may continue the series and cover my early career.

Techie beginnings…

It all started when my parents bought me a used Sinclair ZX81.  I was 13 and a half.

From that moment on, I spent all of my time hunched in front of that black slab of wonderment, tapping away at its membrane keyboard.

In no time at all I had taught myself the Sinclair BASIC programming language, advancing from the typical “Hello World” program to one that a friend and I wrote which calculated the winners for our fathers' racing pigeon club.  Later I wrote Pigeon Racer 2 on my high-powered Amstrad CPC-464, building in a live top-10 scoreboard which recalculated based on arrival times as the Pigeons came home to roost.

Not long after, at the ripe old age of 16, I was asked to create a dog pedigree program for my father's friend's Alsatian breeding business; my entry into the world of commercial computing.

After leaving college, a relative spotted an ad hidden in the back of a national newspaper.  “Trainee Computer Programmers wanted - no experience necessary.”

Heart racing, I called the number, leaving my details then sitting by the phone like an anxious cat.  A few weeks later I received a call inviting me for an interview.  You could have knocked me over with a feather!

I prepared for the interview by collecting printouts of my best programs (especially the pigeon racing and dog pedigree ones) and putting them neatly into a folder.

The day of the interview arrived, and I headed into London with my father, my folder of programs tucked under one arm.  My heart sank when we arrived for the interview at Tower Bridge. 600 other hopefuls packed the lobby.   Although the initial interview was short, I did manage to briefly refer to my folder full of programs. No-one knew who the company was.

A few days later I was asked to attend the next round of interviews. This time round I had enough time to explain how my programs worked, why I’d made certain design choices, and the challenges around coding for dogs instead of pigeons (they won't sit still, like pigeons). My nerves ratcheted up another notch as I still wasn't told the name of the hiring company.

More days passed, and I had nearly given up when I received a call informing me I had made it to the final interview stage, for News International Newspapers.  It clicked.  I knew why there was so much secrecy around the hiring; they had only recently moved from Fleet Street to Wapping and removed all of the print unions from site. I had seen on the news that there were still picketing lines outside their new location.

The journey to my next interview was the most nerve wracking of all, as not only was I now down to a short-list of around 8 people but I had to walk past the picket lines to get to the building, with the former print-workers shouting abuse as I quickly walked passed.

The final interview went by in a blur of nervousness and techie speak.  As far as I was concerned, it was over before it even started.  Then a few days later that magical call came in - I had the job!

And that’s when the real fun started…