I'm curious about who started on a totally different path and found their passion for software?

I went to an audio engineering school. I was totally lost with my life but was making music. I decided I didn't want anyone else to mix/master my stuff so I would do it myself. Went to school, did well there, really enjoyed it. After graduation, I got into freelance audio engineering. I didn't love it. It didn't pay all the bills so I was working in IT. I told my boss I didn't like the work we did but I thought we could solve a lot of customer problems with software. He agreed. He mentored me while we develop some (very poor) solutions to various IT problems. Fast forward to today, I'm working at a large company and building my own product. For the first time in my life I can actually build things. I feel like I am just getting to the point where I can contribute positively to the world and I've never felt better.

I started learning to program when I was a child, first with Z80 assembly, then C, Pascal, C++, Common Lisp, Delphi, whatever. I always enjoyed writing tools and starting projects (most of them never finished). For years I worked as an IT tech guy, then SCCM management. One day I got sick of it and started developing FreelanceStation . And then I published it! Now I have started another project which is going to be announced here on PH in about 6 months if everything goes well. For a long time I envisioned developing software on my own. But it took me a long time to finally be able to do it.

I was on a completely different path 3 years ago - I was a teacher, but all of my friends worked in tech. I visited one of them at the office at the end of a work day, ran around getting excited about all of their projects, was invited in to interview the next day and became a Product Manager. I've moved on to focus more on Client Experience and operations, and haven't looked back since.

Started in strategy consulting, then became a BA in old waterfall world, then decided I wanted to be an Architect (the building variety, not the tech variety) and then fell in love with XD and the tech world!

I graduated from Maritime Academy, and have been working for 5 years at sea as a navigational officer. Made a trip around the world by sea. Now I'm already 5+ years as the product manager in a tech company, starting a new product from scratch. It's all about passion to create and I never regret that pivot point in y life.