Similar story on a smaller scale for me. I wrote a plugin to fix an issue we had on our server, then got asked to do some work on the server's website to show

Similar story on a smaller scale for me. I wrote a plugin to fix an issue we had on our server, then got asked to do some work on the server's website to show news and in game stats. Wound up on the admin team helping to run it. Built a number of plugins for it. Learnt a lot of Linux/ server ops through it, and the importance of backups. And it helped me get a job. I showed off an Angular based editor I wrote for one an achievements plugin. The plugin exported data on available triggers and rewards ("is person in this area", "do they have this item equipped", "give them this item", "spawn this mob near them"), and the editor turned this into a GUI anyone could use to quickly make/edit achievements.