For me it was “2. Pure grit and consistency in completing stuff you started”. A solo public hobby project meant that I landed up having a kind of “portfolio” f

For me it was “2. Pure grit and consistency in completing stuff you started”. A solo public hobby project meant that I landed up having a kind of “portfolio” for my first actual software development job. I was also lucky that the interviewers were cognisant of my background and the questions focused on asking me to explain my technical decisions and how I solved problems. They were essentially gauging my general software development aptitude and potential. For the job I landed I had to learn C# (had only done PHP, ASP classic and JavaScript before), but I picked it up pretty quickly. The other thing I realised after having the job for a while was that the fact I had seen the hobby project through to actually releasing something pretty polished was far more significant an achievement than I originally gave myself credit for as many supposedly “professional” developers haven’t achieved this. Overall, a good bit of luck, but I was able to capitalise well on it due my being a bit of a “natural” when it comes to software development.