I count the beginning of my professional career as 2000, when I started working in electronics at Staples. My job was sales, but I also became one of the people customers brought their computer questions and repair problems to.
The part after the purchase
I would talk with someone who was excited about buying a new computer. Then the conversation would shift. They were not sure how they would get it connected at home, move their files, install everything, or make the rest of their equipment work with it.
At the time, the store did not have an in-home setup service I could point them to. I began taking on that work outside my store hours: bringing the computer into the house, connecting it, and getting the customer through the first setup.
Setup turned into repair work
The first jobs were mostly about new computers. From there, people started calling about the computers they already owned. A setup visit could lead to a repair, a hardware installation, help with a home network, or another call from somebody they knew.
That became a small mobile computer service. I went to people’s homes, looked at whatever was not working, and tried to leave them with a computer they could actually use. Much of the business grew through ordinary conversations and referrals.
Then came websites
Over time, the work spread beyond home computers. People and small businesses needed help with websites, too. The repair and installation work gradually became broader technical work, and website projects became a larger part of it.
There was not one clean moment when computer repair ended and web work began. One kind of request led to another. I kept learning the next tool because somebody had a real problem in front of me.
Why I still count this as the beginning
I did not have language like developer experience or Developer Relations for any of this in 2000. I was listening to what people were worried about, learning enough to help, and staying with the problem until the technology was useful to them.
The public tutorials collected on this site begin in 2008. The work itself began earlier, with new computer owners trying to figure out what came next.