Getting a net developer job.

How did you get your start doing net developer work, and what career moves did you make to get to your current position?

Do you need a particular educational background?

I started my development career by accident - I had applied and was offered a Pre-Sales opportunity that involved a little scripting, prototyping, etc. and within a few weeks of that the company changed direction and decided they needed to develop some client based solutions. My manager at the time had taken the job during the 2002-3 lag so was actually an architect with alot of experience. He mentored me for about 18 months, during which time I learned alot about development.

After a while he left, and I followed, and throughout the next few years I picked up on more and more development fundamentals and latest trends through reading, etc.

With engineering degrees however, I do feel sometimes I'm lacking in some basics for computer programming/development. What some people take for granted and have applied over and over again, I trip up on or can't come up with immediately. Thankfully google and experts-exchange are out there :-)

I love working as a developer and would encourage anyone who has a keen interest to try. But I'd also caution that learning some basic fundamentals by someone/reference that is a good developer is a good idea. You don't want to just be a code monkey...