I work in aviation safety. I build data pipelines and statistical and AI/ML models to identify potential hazards. Like many, I'm self-taught and learned to pro

I work in aviation safety. I build data pipelines and statistical and AI/ML models to identify potential hazards. Like many, I'm self-taught and learned to program before formally studying CS in college. I found my dad's copy of the K&R C book and would sneak into my parent's bedroom at night to write code on the family computer (he was jaded from his career and didn't want me to become a coder). I'd debug during the day in school. I found more programming books at the library and learned more languages that way. I mostly learned by building little projects constantly. Curiosity is what drew me to programming. There was an endless supply of interesting problems to think about and I wanted to figure out how things worked--no different from a budding civil or electrical or mechanical engineer wondering how the infrastructure surrounding them worked. The big difference, I think, is that software is considerably more accessible as a young child than, say, building a bridge or building or robot.