I'm a mechanical engineer by trade, but like many others here, have been a "computer geek" since a very young age. We had dialup internet and a 486 running DOS

I'm a mechanical engineer by trade, but like many others here, have been a "computer geek" since a very young age. We had dialup internet and a 486 running DOS at home in the early 90s when I was around 8 or so, which wasn't very common. I learned python by myself at around 14 /15, in part because I wanted it to do my boring, repetitive math homework for me. I started reading Slashdot around that time. I was also very interested in mechanical things, built a tabletop trebuchet, working on small engine machines (minibike, old snowmobile which I bought by working by working retail at min wage) and eventually chose mechanical engineering as a career path over CS, for no very specific reason (it's tough asking 18 year olds to make a career choice). I kept kept reading Slashdot and toying with computers and eventually migrated to HN with many others around the time of the redesign and acquisition. Today I have a job I actually love as a mechanical research engineer, which is varied and lets me program and play with electronics from time to time. I still program in my free time, though it's getting scarce these days (as a father to a 2 year old). That works pretty well as a job/hobby combination as programming requires no space and is pretty much free, which isn't really the case of, say, machining robot parts (have access to a lathe and CNC mills at work). I did try working as a developer for a year ("DevOps" for an accounting software company) but was pretty unhappy and quickly started looking to move back into ME. However, I'd be lying if I said reading about the astronomical total comp numbers that are casually thrown around HN didn't make me question my career choice sometimes.