I started off doing software tech support. While doing support I built tools to streamline and automate things. Managers took notice and offered me a job where

I started off doing software tech support. While doing support I built tools to streamline and automate things. Managers took notice and offered me a job where it was a blend of coding, system analysis, and handling escalated support issues. I automated pretty much everything in that job as well. At that point I had some useful experience on my resume so I started interviewing for "pure" software engineering jobs. I've been a software engineer for the last 10 years. No CS degree (though I did study engineering), but I love building stuff and I think that passion came through in my interviews.